Carla Kelly - Western Christmas Proposals

“Right here. There’s a little room off the storeroom,” he said, for some reason taking her side. “I can tell you I wouldn’t mind having someone down here at night. He could eat upstairs with us.”

“It’s out of the question,” Ned replied, but he sounded neither determined nor irritated now.

“Why?” Kate asked softly. “Pete can work and earn money, same as you and me.”

“I’m liking this idea more and more,” Mr. Bradley said. “Why not try? If it doesn’t work after a week or so, we’ll know.” The merchant turned the force of his enthusiasm on Ned. “Your ma used to tell my wife that all she wanted was for Pete to have a chance at something. What could be better than this? He knows Millie and me. Hell, Pete knows everyone in town! What do you say?”

“Just don’t say no so fast, Ned,” Kate urged. “Can we think about it?”

“We?” Ned asked, exasperated again.

You’re not going to make me angry, she thought. She took a deep breath. “Yes, we. If Pete goes to work here, we’ll have to work a little harder to take care of your father.”

“You don’t mind?” Ned asked, and she knew she had him.

“Of course not. Nothing changes for me. You’re the one who won’t have any extra help outside.”

Ned sighed. “As it is, with Pete I’m dragging around a boat anchor. He’d rather do anything than get on a horse and ride all day.”

“There you are,” Mr. Bradley said cheerfully.

Silence for a moment, as Ned looked from her to the merchant and back. “All right. I’ll bring him to town tomorrow and we’ll try it for a week.”

“Shake on it?” Mr. Bradley asked, holding out his hand.

They shook hands, and Kate wanted to do a two-step around the pickle barrel.

Mr. Bradley beamed at them both. “Your chore girl and I loaded the food in the buckboard. Millie and I will tidy that little room tonight. Bring Pete by anytime before noon, will you?”

“You got me,” Ned told Katie after he helped her into the buckboard and went around to his side.

“I saw the sign and thought of Pete,” she said simply, determined not to apologize for a good idea acted upon.

He didn’t say anything for half the journey home, and then he started to chuckle. Kate felt the tension leave her shoulders.

“We’ll try it out,” he told her. “Pete used to milk the cow morning and night. You up for that?”

“If you’ll remind me how. It’s been years.”

“My pleasure.” He started on his tuneless whistle that she was already familiar with. She relaxed some more when Pete met them at the front door—the only door—of the worst place she had ever lived. Funny that she was already thinking of it as home.

Chapter Ten

Katie gave Ned credit for impressive self-control that night when Pete kept asking every few minutes if he was really going to work in town for Mr. Bradley. He asked it from the stew to the muffins, and only stopped when Ned told him to put a lid on it or he would take it all back.

Reasoning that he hadn’t made any promises to Katie, Pete then asked her over and over, when he was supposed to be teaching her to milk the cow, a rangy little number that didn’t appear to suffer fools gladly, if all those looks she gave Kate were any indication.

“Pack your clothes in that old carpetbag of Pa’s,” Ned said finally. “And don’t drive Pa nuts!” he called after his brother.

“I should have just stuck him in the buckboard tomorrow and told him on the way to town,” Ned grumbled to Kate. He sat down beside her on the stool and nudged her over. He told her to watch him milk and she did, aware of how close he sat and that he smelled of hair oil.

“You got your hair cut,” she said. “I was hoping you didn’t spend all that time in the Watering Hole,” she teased.

He gave her another nudge, which sent her off the stool and frightened the patient mama cat waiting for her turn.

“Beg your pardon,” he said in mock contrition, but he moved over a little and she sat again. “Put your hands beside mine.”

She wondered if she should tell him she had milked cows when she was a little girl. Her step pa had hit her when she didn’t do a good job, but Ned Avery didn’t need to know that.

“You try it now,” he directed.

She did as he said and he watched her. For one small moment, that same irrational fear came over her, but the ending was different this time.

“You’ll do,” he said, and touched her shoulder. He returned to the other side of the barn and finished his chores. He carried the bucket of milk into the house when she finished and told her that his father wanted to see her.

“Don’t look so worried,” he exclaimed.

“My step pa used to beat me when I didn’t do chores the way he wanted,” she told him, embarrassed to admit it, but wanted him to understand her own fear.

“That will never happen here,” he said quietly, then stopped so suddenly that the milk slopped over a little. “In fact, I know something about you that you probably don’t even realize.”

“What could that possibly be?” she asked, half amused, half wary.

“I’ve thought about this while I was riding fence,” he began, shaking his head. “Riding fence is so boring that my flights of fancy sometimes amaze me!” He turned serious then. “You’ve told me what you’ve been through at the hands of a very bad man.”

Even when he said no more, she understood what Ned wanted. “Are you wondering why I agreed to work for you?”

“I’m wondering more than a little. How did you know I wasn’t a bad man, too? You didn’t even know my name.”

They stood there in the empty space between the barn and the house, no one else in sight, the sky dark, snow threatening. She did not know how he would feel about her answer, but it was the only one she had. “Something about you told me I could trust you,” Kate said finally. She thought some more. “You didn’t crowd me. You just stood there so respectful, your hat in your hand.”

“Pa says I’m too serious. He says ladies want someone exciting.”

Katie shook her head. “Not me! Something told me I could trust you.”

He followed her into the kitchen, setting the milk into pans and covering it with a clean cloth. Tomorrow she would skim off the cream and add it to the cream of the day before. In another day she would churn it. She had found a small glass rose, stuck in that same cabinet with the calving rope, that she intended to press into the still soft butter to make a decoration.

“I should have asked you before I promised Pete to Mr. Bradley,” she said.

“Maybe, maybe not. Just thinking of that conversation embarrasses me,” he said. He sat down at the table and patted the chair beside him. “You notice how quick I was to say no, without even thinking?”

“I noticed,” she told him, “but you make the decisions.”

“No excuse for not considering something before I shut it down,” he said. He touched her hand lightly. “Thank you for not giving up on a good idea that I probably would have strangled at birth.”

She couldn’t help but feel flattered. “Everyone is taking a chance with this idea.”

“Glen Bradley will let me know if it’s not working,” he said. He gestured down the hall. “Pa wants to talk to you. Want me in there, too?”

Pride nearly made her say no, but as Katie looked into his eyes, she saw the kindness there. “I do,” she whispered.

Mr. Avery told her to take a seat and she did, pulling up the one chair in the room until it was closer to his bed. Ned stood behind her chair, his hands on the back of it.

“Ned, I’m not going to scold her,” Mr. Avery said. “You can leave.”

She was too embarrassed to look around, but heard Ned’s laugh as he backed out of the room. He didn’t go far, because she heard the rustle of his mattress in the next connecting room.