The Cowboy's Cinderella

“That would be fine.”

“I’ve got something for you, Ivy.” He dug into his pocket. “Well, two things.”

He slipped her mother’s pendant about her neck. She reached up, closed it in her fist. It felt right to have the memento back where it belonged.

“And here.” He pressed an envelope into her hand. “It’s money. This marriage is a good thing—I want that for you—but a woman should have something of her own, in case of hard times. Your groom doesn’t even have to know about these funds. Travis has agreed to store them for you should you need them...which I don’t think you will, given that your intended is well-off.”

Uncle Patrick stared at her for a long moment. She reckoned he was memorizing her face, same as she was his.

Slowly, he turned her about, his hands firm on her shoulders.

“Off with you now,” he said. “Go with your young man and claim your future.”

She wished Travis was her young man, she’d feel a sight more comfortable about this whole thing if he was. Travis was at least a friend, instead of a stranger.

Silently, she nodded then walked over the gangplank toward the unknown, pausing for only an instant to feel the aged wood rocking under her feet.

“Goodbye, you wonderful river,” she whispered.

Then Travis was there, offering his hand. She took it and stepped ashore.

Chapter Four

Ivy stopped on the gangplank. Her hesitation was slight, barely more than a couple of heartbeats, but in that second Travis felt the future balance on a razor’s edge.

If she changed her mind—and no one would blame her for it if she did—the lives of those he loved would be damaged forever.

But then she came to him, taking the hand he offered, but more than that...accepting the future he offered.

“I bought you a horse,” he said, stating the obvious because he did not know what else was appropriate to say. “But back at the ranch you own a hundred more.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes at the pretty little mare that he had purchased. The horse was guaranteed to be gentle. He believed it; friendliness shone from her soft brown eyes.

“You want me to get up on that thing?”

“I thought you liked horses.”

This might be a setback. It would be Christmas before they got home if they had to walk to Wyoming.

“I do. I like them fine. I was talking about the saddle. Never been on one before.”

“You’ve never ridden?”

“Not much call to on a boat deck.”

“I reckon we can lead them for a mile or two, then when you’re comfortable, I’ll show you what to do.”

“Could take a lot of leading,” she admitted.

“I know this is all so strange to you.”

She nodded. “It feels like I’m going to live on the moon.”

“You’ll grow to like it. Everyone will welcome you like you are a queen.”

“I never aspired to be a queen...not even a princess.”

“I only meant that they will be forever grateful.”

Ivy stroked the mare’s nose, whispered something to her that he could not hear.

“Uncle Patrick is watching from the hurricane deck,” she said with a backward glance. “I reckon it would make it easier for him to see me riding. That will make him think that I’ll be all right.”

“You will be all right, better than all right.”

“Easy for you to say, my friend. You aren’t the one marrying a stranger.”

“Let’s take this thing step by little step. Starting with learning to ride.”

She took a breath, patted the pouch on her hat. “Sure is a long way up there.”

“Nice view of things once you settle in, though.”

“How do I go about settling in?”

The easiest way to get her on the horse would be to put his hands on her rear and hoist her up. But Patrick Malone was watching and Ivy’s rump was—

He had to look away quick. The heir was not meant for him. He’d better not let ruinous thoughts creep into his mind. Better to cut them off at the beginning before they got out of control.

Making a cup out of his joined hands, he indicated with a nod that she should put one foot in the cradle of his hand. “Hold on to the saddle horn and hoist yourself over.”

“Here I go. Make sure you catch me if I start to topple over the other side.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

But what did happen was that in rising, the ample curve of her breast, clad only in worn flannel, passed within an inch of his nose.

His heart thumped harder. He would not let that happen either. She had called him friend and so he would remain.

Anything more and he might just as well not have ripped her from the life she loved.

Although, as ripped as she no doubt felt, she had made the decision to go with him of her own free will. Yes, it had been aided by the sale of the boat, but still, no one had forced her.

“You look fine up there, Ivy.” He smiled up at her then mounted his horse. “You’ll make a good horsewoman.”

She turned in the saddle, waved to her uncle and gave him a big smile. “That’s a bit hopeful. Critter hasn’t even moved and I feel like I’m going to lose my breakfast.”

“You won’t.” He urged his horse forward and the mare followed. “All you have to do is hold on—your sweet girl will trail after my horse.”

“I’m putting my trust in you, Travis.”

Somehow, that simple statement made him want to deliver her back to her uncle. Her life was about to be spun about in a twister. Riding a horse instead of a ship was the least of what was to come.

But for now, she meant that she was trusting him to teach her to ride. “The rocking of her gait isn’t so different from the rocking of a ship. See how she rolls just like a deck.”

“If I fall off the deck, I’ll hit water. I fall off this saddle it’s hard ground.”

“This new life will be strange for a while,” he said, glancing behind and seeing that the River Queen had disappeared from view. “I’m here, Ivy, you don’t need to worry.”

* * *

Ivy was worried.

No longer worried about falling out of the saddle, but on this second night camping outside, she wondered if she would ever sleep again.

The land, while not quite silent, was lacking in the comfort of human sounds. With the exception of Travis’s deep, even breathing, that is. The man slept like a baby in his mama’s arms.

At home on the Queen, Ivy had been lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat and the knowledge that someone was always awake and keeping watch. She would stir in the night to hear footsteps going past her door, then whispered voices as the watch changed hands.

Out here there were rustling critters in bushes, owls and bats overhead...worst of all were the howls of coyotes and wolves moaning over the land.

She sat up suddenly from her bedroll, too aware that there were no walls, no buffer of water between her and them.

“Travis?” she called. He lay stretched out, relaxed, on the far side of the fire.

He lifted his hat from his face to...yes, to glare at her. But, gull-durn it, it wasn’t her fault that the wolf sounded closer and bigger than it had five minutes ago.

“That wolf’s getting closer. Little Mouse is nervous about it.”

“Not a wolf, a coyote, and it won’t come near the fire.”

He’d assured her of that three times in the past few hours, but in her opinion, it did sound closer.

“She’s also cold. She’s used to being in my room all warm and cozy.” Truthfully, the mouse was probably toasty inside her pouch. It was Ivy who was cold.

And sore. Every time she felt a mite comfortable trying to rest on the ground, her muscles would begin to ache. One couldn’t spend all day in the saddle without paying a price.

All right, Travis could, she would have to admit. But as much as he assured her that her aches would go away, she didn’t believe it...not any more than she believed this little fire would keep a pack of hungry predators at bay.

Travis sat up, rubbed his hand over his face. Then with a groan, he reached for the woodpile and tossed two logs on the fire. Sparks crackled toward the treetops.

“That better?”

“Warmer,” she admitted. “But it seems to me that it sends a big signal, letting those hungry critters know where we are.”

“They already know it. Have you gotten any sleep at all?” he asked in a gruff, accusing voice.

She shook her head. Maybe it would help if she loosened her braid like she did at home.

Untying the leather thong, she shook her head then ran her fingers through the messy hank. She had a brush but it was in her saddle pack and that was at the edge of the small clearing where the firelight did not reach. She was not going over there for anything.

“How long ’til daylight, I wonder?” Not that it would be such a relief since she would then be required to get back in the saddle. A whole new collection of aches and pains would cramp her muscles and make her bones hurt.

“Four hours,” he said, seeming certain about that even though there was no watchman calling out the hour to the pilot.

“I’m sorry for sounding sharp.” He got up from his side of the fire and came to hers. He sat down a friendly distance away.

Funny how she wished he’d move even closer. He was large enough to give off a wave of warmth.

“After a while, you’ll get used to this.” He indicated the dark beyond the fire’s reach.

“If that’s so, why’d you bring your gun over here?”

“It’s for the two-legged varmints.”

“Folks?”

“Ivy, haven’t you ever run across someone who wanted to harm you?”

“Reckon I might have, but my uncle and the roustabouts were always nearby.”

He set the gun down between them. Maybe he figured if a two-legged marauder did invade their camp, she would help by picking up the side arm and dispatching the troublemaker in a single shot. He would not be reassured to know that Uncle Patrick did not hold with guns aboard the Queen. She was as likely to shoot Travis as the invader.

Since she felt as helpless in her new world as a bald baby, she didn’t tell him this.

“I’ve been wondering,” Travis said, sounding conversational.

If conversation would keep him awake and on her side of the fire she’d speak everything that came across her mind.

Beginning with, “So have I. Will my...that is, well, my husband...will he mind sharing his home with Little Mouse?” Not that it mattered in the end. She had kept her existence a secret from Uncle Patrick; she could as easily keep her a secret from...what was his name? Waldo, Wilfred? Winston? Gosh almighty! She’d been so caught up in everything she’d plum forgot her intended’s name.

“What made you decide to come with me? To take on all this?” Travis asked, ignoring the interruption of her nonsense question. “You might have refused...left us to deal with things on our own?”

“Uncle Patrick sold the boat. I no longer had a home.”

“That wasn’t all of it.” He looked at her, clearly searching behind her eyes for the true answer.

“Agatha, of course.” She was the one and only reason.

At the end of all this was the person she had been longing for all her life. The one she had thought was a dream, an imaginary friend. No longer a hazy desire. Agatha was a flesh-and-bone sister. She had stepped out of the mist and become family.

And with the new bond Ivy would find—or rediscover maybe—love. The fact that she had no solid memories of Agatha did not take away from the new emotion Ivy felt for her.

“No one else would have been able to make me leave my uncle, no matter how much a landlubber he becomes after the Queen.”

“All of us on the Lucky Clover are beholden to you.”

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I reckon if it weren’t for my sister I wouldn’t be here.” Gull-durn it, she did sound ungrateful. Mighty ungrateful when he’d offered her something that most women never even dreamed of. “I’ll do my best not to let you down.”

“I don’t see how you could,” he said.

“I could take one look at my groom and run like a Sunday Chicken.”

“William English is a handsome man.”

William...she’d do her durndest to remember it next time.

“I don’t know a thing about running a ranch.”

“You won’t need to. That’s my job.”

“But I want to. If it’s really mine, I won’t sit about as useless as a feathered hat.”

“You don’t like pretty feathered hats? Most ladies do.”

“Why I’d feel sorry for the bird those feathers first belonged to every time I put it on. Besides, they’d tickle my neck. I tell you, Travis, when it comes to their appearance, ladies can be as foolish as peacocks. Struttin’ around in their finery with nary a care for comfort. Downright traps is what those feathers and lace are.”

Travis made a noise under his breath. Sure wasn’t a happy sound. More like a curse but without the word formed.

He crawled back to his side of the fire, stretched out then covered his face with his hat.

“Don’t know why you’re so prickly, Travis Murphy. You don’t have to wear them.”

He grunted again, then pretended to be asleep.

She was not mistaken that the wolf pack—and she was gull-durned certain they were not coyotes—had come closer. Since Travis had taken his gun and stored it under his saddle, she hoped he was right about the fire keeping them away.

“Sure do hope this ranch house you’re taking me to has four solid walls,” she grumbled.

For some reason, that made Travis chuckle in his false sleep. She was relieved to hear the sound.

* * *

Travis knelt beside the kindling he had stacked for the night’s campfire. He paused in igniting the match to watch Ivy wading in the knee-deep stream.

Her pant legs were rolled up to her thighs. Her braid dangled over her shoulder as she bent at the waist, peering into the water. Little Mouse clung to the collar of her shirt, peering at the water as intently as Ivy was.

She had promised fresh fish for supper. Without fishing gear he couldn’t figure how she’d manage it.

No doubt they would end up eating jerky and hardtack again tonight. But for now he was enjoying watching her try to catch a fish. She moved gracefully through the rushing stream, sometimes standing as still as an egret before she glided a few more steps.

Behind her, the land rolled away to the horizon where the setting sun streaked the clouds in brilliant orange. He’d rarely seen a prettier, more dramatic vista.

This incredible, once-a-year sunset was the perfect backdrop for a once-in-a-lifetime woman.

The scene before him was one that he would always cherish, no matter where his life took him...or hers took her.

Once in a while there were moments out of time that one could only embrace.

But a second later, the thought of where Ivy’s life was about to take her suddenly turned his stomach sour.

In the beginning, when he had begun his search for Eleanor, he’d given her future no more than a passing concern. Any woman would certainly want what he was offering: land, wealth and a prominent husband.

Women all over the state would envy Ivy.

All of a sudden he could not look at her. He lit the kindling and added three small logs, watching while the sparks caught and the tiny flames reached for wood.

He was beginning to fear that she was the one woman who would not want what he offered.

She wanted her sister, yes. But the rest?

Hearing water splash and Ivy laugh, he looked up.

“Got us a big fat one, Travis!” She held up her catch, waving it victoriously in her fists. Little Mouse slipped but caught Ivy’s shirt with four pink paws and scrambled inside her breast pocket. “Want one more?”

“That one’s big enough for three!” he called back.

For a moment, he tried to picture her in a frilly dress nipped tight at the waist like the ladies wore them. She would look lovely. There was no denying it. But would it make her happy?

From what she’d had to say about fashion so far, he doubted it.

All he could hope for was that she would learn to be comfortable with it. The future of everyone at the Lucky Clover depended upon her being willing to become elegant.

“Heat up the pan while I gut this critter,” she said, standing beside him now, her calves and ankles spotted with water that sparkled on her skin with the final rays of the setting sun.

He glanced up at her; the satisfaction of catching dinner bare-handed made her blue eyes light up with pleasure. The mouse crept out of her pocket then crawled up her shirt to sit on her shoulder.

Was it even possible for Ivy to become elegant? Would she end up with a crushed spirit, the same as had happened to her mother?

There would be no divorce for Ivy, though. No second chance at life. William English was not a cruel man, but he was ambitious. His wife would be a reflection of him. Perfection would be required of her.

Given who he was, William would be a perfect husband, a match to his perfect wife, at least in the public eye.

If that did not turn out to be the case privately, William would never allow divorce to ruin the ideal image.

“Better get that pan going!” This time Ivy’s voice came from beside the stream. “I’m so hungry I’d fight a bear for this fish!”

He watched her while he fetched the pan from his saddle pack.

Kneeling beside the water, she sliced the fish down the middle. Scooping out the innards, she tossed them into the stream.

They had spent thirteen nights on the road to Cheyenne. The first three had been sleepless misery, but not the last ten. In fact, night before last she had only woken him once, fearing that she heard a bear rustling in the shrubbery.

Which, she had. But the small brown critter had fled when Travis banged the fry pan and the kettle against each other.

“Gosh almighty, you’re brave!” she’d declared, grinning at him in clear admiration.

Then she’d slept on his side of the fire the rest of the night without waking. But last night she’d slept on her own side of the fire.

Funny how he’d been the one to wake up, hoping the sounds in the night would be Ivy Magee coming to lie beside him again.

As much as he knew it was wrong to want that, he’d continued to toss about, seeing images of her in his mind and wondering if...wondering nothing. Unrestricted wondering would be a big mistake.

Watching her now while the pan heated, smiling with pride at her filleted fish, he knew it was a damn good thing that they would reach Cheyenne in two days.

That was when he would need to begin making a lady out of Miss Eleanor Ivy Magee. She wouldn’t feel so friendly toward him then, and he might find it easier to resist her earthy charm.

There was no doubt that she was going to resist the restrictions on her dress and behavior. Looked at fairly, who was he to force them upon her?

Only the man fighting for the survival of the Lucky Clover and everyone on it.

He could only hope that after a time, she would come to see that this new life was for the best.

Given time, she would forget the ways of the river and embrace being a fine lady.

Curse it, that thought ought to put him at ease. All it did was turn his belly sour, keeping him from anticipating eating his share of that hand-caught fish.

Chapter Five

There were some things Ivy had gotten used to, even come to enjoy.

One thing was the sway of the horse’s gait beneath her was no longer frightening. So far, she hadn’t tumbled out of the saddle. She reckoned she wouldn’t, now that she was better used to things. Besides, it really wasn’t that far to the ground.

Another was—and this did surprise her—as long as Travis was close by, she was able to fall asleep beside the campfire. It didn’t appear, after all, that she was going to be eaten by a wolf or torn to pieces by a marauding bear.

Also, the folks they had met along the way were as friendly as pie.

But gosh almighty, just when she’d begun to think she might get by living away from the wide and wonderful Missouri River, she’d set eyes on the South Platte.

“This ain’t no river, Travis!” She’d stood at the bank, staring in dismay at the ribbon of brown cutting the land. “Why, a body couldn’t even paddle a canoe down the middle of this mud puddle.”

In her mind, a respectable river ought to gurgle and ripple. It ought to be overhung with trees. For as far as she could see, those green beauties were scarce.

Land stretched out forever, unbroken by anything but the skyline of Cheyenne, which Travis had called the Magic City.

It was their destination today and even though they were still a couple of hours away, she could see tall buildings against the bright blue sky.

“This river is the life blood of your ranch,” he explained. “It’s what keeps your cattle watered.”

He looked nervous. Could be he thought she might hightail and run, given how ugly things were compared to where she had come from.

Here she was, though, and she would have to make the best of things. In the end, it was her sister she’d come to be with and the sad state of the water didn’t count for much by comparison.

Maybe she’d get used to looking up and seeing an ocean of rolling hills instead of a mountain range. As long as she had Agatha, she’d be happy enough.

But that was some miserable looking water.

“How’s a body to swim in the natural?” She wagged her finger at the sluggishly flowing water.

Travis Murphy’s jaw sagged. “Life is different now, Ivy. You just can’t go freely around like you did before.”

“I reckon I can if there’s miles of land that’s mine. I suppose I can do what I want to on it.”

“Maybe.” His frown set deep in his brow. “I guess I can send one of the help with you if you’ve got your heart set on bathing in the Platte.”

“Help?” Her heart flipped over on itself.

“Hired women? Ladies who work in the house?”

“I hope I’m not supposed to be in charge of them.” She’d never been in charge of anyone but Ivy Magee. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about that. I reckon they know what to do fine all on their own.”

“They do.” Poor Travis looked more worried by the minute. “But they might need your opinion, or advice once in a while.”

“Don’t know that I can advise anyone who already knows what they’re doing better than I do.” This whole business troubled the daylights out of her.

Travis walked to the shoreline. He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, staring at the water slogging slowly past.

“I reckon you wish someone else was the heir.” It bothered her to think that he did, but she couldn’t blame him for it. “I’ll do my best not to shame you.”

“Shame? I’m so damn grateful for you, Ivy.”

He turned to face her. Those lush green eyes all but made her weak in the knees. They reminded her of home...of the river and the trees. He tugged gently on her braid then let go so quickly that it was as if her hair had burned him.

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know,” he said.

“I’m plum obliged.” She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I reckon I never had a better friend.”

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