Bartered Bride Romance Collection (53 page)

Bess glanced about the saloon. Gideon was right. Men were entering, wanting to celebrate. She doubted their manner of celebrating was safer than that of the shooters in the streets. Likely gunfire would increase after the drink flowed freely.

And after everyone was done drinking and sobered up, they’d be hungry. She and Bertie could capitalize on that.

Jim squeezed her elbow. “We’ll go out the back door. Safer that way.”

“Wait a minute.” She explained her plan to feed the celebrators. “Bertie and I will need supplies.”

He frowned. “You can’t be going to the general store in this fracas. Let’s get you home safe. Then you can give me a list of what you need. I’ll get it for you.”

They headed toward the back door. Men watched her with curious expressions, but none made lewd remarks with Jim at her side.

She grabbed some firewood from the back of the saloon, much to Jim’s exasperation. “The longer we’re outside, the longer you’re in danger.”

“The hooligans are all on the main street right now. We need firewood to bake. It would be nice if we had a variety of wood to choose from, but it all heats, and I prefer it to buffalo chips. Here, you take some, too.” She handed him a log.

“Women,” he muttered, but he took the log and grabbed a couple more.

A few minutes later, Bess’s list in hand, he stood in the doorway ready to leave for the general store. “You and Bertie stay inside and away from the windows. And use that bar to keep the lice away.”

“Lice?” Bertie directed the question toward the door closing behind Jim.

“Unsavory men,” Bess explained, lowering the bar. “Get a fire started in the stove. I’ll write up a menu. We’ll post copies at the saloon and telegraph office. Need to let men know we’ve got food to offer them.”

Bess named their bakery the Back Porch and put the name in capital letters at the top of the menu. She allowed five hours before opening—time for Jim to return with supplies and for her and Bertie to mix and knead bread, heat the stove, mix eggless cookie dough, and bake.

“We’ll put a rice pudding on the stove,” she told Bertie while she wrote. “And a kettle of dried applesauce. The more we have to offer, the better.”

Jim posted the menus and brought more firewood after he returned to the house with their supplies and before he headed back to the ranch. “I’ll bring back some beef. Men are sure to gobble it up along with your baked goods. Round here men mostly eat what they hunt—buffalo, antelope, venison, rabbit. They’ll appreciate a good beefsteak.”

Bess welcomed his offer. They both knew there’d still be plenty of men looking for a meal when he returned. And later. “It’s a sure bet the celebrating will go on all night,” Jim said. “Men will pour into town as the news spreads. They’ll be looking for meals tonight and tomorrow when they dry out from the liquor.”

“I hope they’ve got money left after celebrating.” Bess turned to Bertie while tying the sashes of an oversized apron. “Make sure you see their money up front before you take their orders.”

Excitement, purpose, and hope bubbled up in Bess as she and Bertie baked. Their new enterprise was about to receive its first test. “It feels like Christmas,” she confided to Bertie as she pulled the first brown, fragrant loaves of bread from the shiny cast-iron oven hours later.

“For true. Smells like it, too, from the baking.”

“These loaves look good. I was a little worried. It’s wise to season the stove by heating it a few times before baking in it the first time.”

“Good thing you brought so much sourdough starter.”

Bertie was right. Bess sent up a silent thank-you that she’d had the foresight to set the starter aside. She’d planned to begin baking the day after they arrived. God had known they would need it sooner. They also had the bread Corrie sent with them that morning, should they need something to sell before their own baking was ready.

All the while Bess worked in the kitchen, Gideon Riker slipped into her thoughts and had to be forcefully thrust from them. In the midst of kneading bread—her arms tired, her hands sticky with flour and dough, and her nostrils filled with the scents of sourdough and woodsmoke—she remembered the feel of his arms strong around her waist and his chest hard against her. Brushing at a stray lock of her hair, she remembered the feel of his long blond hair brushing her cheek as he spun her around. As the applesauce sputtered on the back of the stove, sending cinnamon scent into the air, she recalled the sound of his laughter, his breath brushing her ear. And she recalled how feminine she felt, held in his arms that way, sharing his joy and wonder at the world-changing event of the transcontinental railroad.

With each memory, it became more difficult to push the thoughts of Gideon Riker aside.
A saloon owner. Honestly, Elizabeth Craig. Have you no standards? Why did I ever agree to come to Lickwind as a mail-order bride? I haven’t met a single man I’d trust past Tuesday, excepting the Collingswood brothers. At least Matty and Corrie married well
.

She was grateful her work helped to force her attentions from her daydreams. She put the dough into loaf pans to rise. Next she filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove then set out the new tin wash pan and scraped soap chips into it. They hadn’t many plates or tableware. They’d need to wash dishes between customers.

The first customers trickled in before Jim returned—cowboys Jim had met on the way home who were hungry after their ride to town. The coins they exchanged gave a cheerful ring when dropped into the tin button box Bess and Bertie used to collect money.

Gideon slid back into Bess’s thoughts, his laughter tickling her ear, as she set a huge galvanized coffeepot on the stove. “Why isn’t this door barred?”

Gideon’s voice jarred her from the too-sweet memory. She spun around, as embarrassed as though he’d heard her thoughts. Her glance darted to the kitchen door through which he’d entered. “I guess we forgot it after the last customers.”

“Don’t forget again.”

His obey-or-else tone angered her, but she knew the wisdom in his advice. “We won’t.”

Ramon stood beside her, growling at Gideon and the redheaded boy with him. “Shush, Ramon.” The dog lay down but continued a low growl. Bess’s gaze fell on the rifle Gideon carried. “What’s that for?”

“You.” He held it toward her.

She put her hands behind her, shook her head, and stepped back until she bumped against the counter. “Oh, no.”

“You might need it to protect yourself.”

“I won’t have a gun in this house. Besides, I don’t know how to shoot one.”

“I don’t have time to teach you now. If someone threatens you or Bertie, just point it in their direction. If that doesn’t stop them, cock the hammer and pull the trigger.”

“I will not. Get it out of here.”

He glanced at her sister. “Bertie?”

Bess reached her arm between him and Bertie, glaring at him. “Don’t even consider asking it of her.”

“If you won’t use it to protect yourselves, at least promise you’ll shoot it off if you have trouble. I’ll hear it and come running.”

“How will you distinguish the sound from the other gunfire in town?” Sporadic celebratory gunfire had sounded all day.

Gideon frowned without replying.

“That’s what I thought. Are you and the boy hungry?” Bess recognized him as the boy who’d stood with Regina Bently during the church service. “Yes, ma’am,” the boy replied hastily.

Gideon rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Walter.”

Bess nodded toward the boy. “Hello, Walter. I’m Miss Craig.”

Gideon set the rifle stock gently against the floor. “Thought he might be a help to you. I’d appreciate it if you’d let him stay the night. Be safer here than at the saloon.”

Bess refrained from asking in front of the lad why the boy should stay at the saloon at all. “Of course he may stay. Bertie, give him a bowl of rice pudding and a slice of bread.”

“I’ll be right back.” Gideon left by the kitchen door; then he opened it and peered inside. “Don’t forget the bar.” Then he was gone again.

Five minutes later, he returned with a metal triangle and a small metal bar. Bess recognized it as the same kind of implement used to call the hands out on the Rough Cs. “Since you won’t use the rifle, sound this if there’s trouble. You can be sure I’ll know its clang from any cowpoke’s gunfire.”

Bess accepted it solemnly. “Thank you.”

“I best be going. There’s a full house at the saloon.”

“Then I doubly thank you for looking out for our welfare instead of your own business.”

Bertie handed him a slice of bread spread thick with butter. “Don’t worry, Mr. Riker. Ramon will protect us.”

Gideon sidled past the still-growling dog. “Don’t forget the bar.”

Gideon swallowed the desire to growl back at the gray excuse for a dog that lay in his path to the door. He usually liked dogs, but this one had hated him since he ushered Bertie out of the saloon last Sunday. He warily passed the dog, opened the door, and slid through it. “Don’t forget the bar.”

He almost collided with Linus and Oscar Hatch. He nodded at them and kept walking. The women wouldn’t have time to bar the door, but he didn’t fear for them with the Hatch cousins.

What had come over him that he’d offered his home to the Craig sisters? Someone must’ve slipped locoweed into the apple pie at the jailhouse Sunday. He’d spent most of the time between then and this morning finishing up the house and putting in the outhouse, with the help of grumbling Harry. Now he’d committed to putting up a chicken coop and a cow shed for the sisters, neither of which he needed for himself.

Worse, ever since that first gunshot earlier today, he’d spent his time worrying over those women. Twice he’d thrown himself between Bess and bullets. Never had he done a thing like that before in his life! The woman was downright dangerous. Wouldn’t even take a gun to protect herself and her kid sister. Instead, he’d offered to answer that clanging call whenever they felt they needed protection. Pure foolishness, that’s what it was.

He took a bite of the bread as he reached the saloon’s back door. Mm. He hadn’t had homemade sourdough bread in years. Mostly he just cooked up some biscuits on the little stove beside the bed in the back room.

The feel of Bess’s soft cheek against his as he twirled her around that afternoon whispered into his memory along with the soft floral scent she wore.
Forget it. You don’t need or want a woman like Bess Craig, even if she’d have anything to do with a saloonkeeper
.

But the picture of her brown eyes dancing with laughter as she stood in his arms persisted as he entered the bar with its yeasty smell of hops and the laughter of celebrating cowboys and dance hall girls.

Chapter 6

A
t five the next morning, Bess sat on her hope chest in the otherwise empty parlor and slumped back against the window. On the floor beside the chest, her only lantern shed a flickering light. Laughter, piano music, and singing sounded loudly from the saloon. Harry wasn’t playing hymns this morning.

Bess ran the palm of her hand lightly over Rhubarb’s back. She lay curled on her lap, giving welcome added warmth. Bess and Bertie had brought Ramon to town with them to give Rhubarb a respite from Ramon, but the cat had other ideas. When Jim Collingswood arrived with the goods from the farm earlier that evening, the cat had jumped out of the wagon, surprising the rancher and the sisters. The cat made straight for Bertie and twined about the girl’s booted legs with a purr that almost drowned out the noise of the celebrating cowboys.

Bess stretched, and her movement wakened the cat. Rhubarb jumped down and made her way across the floor and up the stairs.
Likely looking for Bertie
, Bess thought.

Was Bertie asleep? Bess had sent her to bed—with quilts since they had no mattress tick yet—three hours ago. Walter slept in the spare bedroom. She didn’t know how anyone could sleep with this noise, but neither Bertie nor Walter had come back downstairs.

A knock on the door caused her to rise with a sigh. Another customer. She wasn’t about to turn down the money. Perhaps she’d catch her second wind soon.