Lynna Banning - The Hired Man

“Oh, Cordell, I am so terribly thirsty. Would you be so kind as to fetch me some lemonade?”

Cord gave her a level look. “Sorry, Miss Moreland. As you can see, I have my hands full.” He shifted Molly’s weight to emphasize his point.

“Why, who is this darling little girl?” Fanny gushed. “Surely you are not the father? You’re not married, are you, Cordell?”

“No, he’s not!” Molly blurted out. “I’m Molly, and he’s not married. He lives with us!”

Fanny’s expression changed. “Oh, you mean with Mrs. Malloy?”

Molly nodded. “Yes, with my mama.”

Cord cleared his throat. “I work for Mrs. Malloy. I’m her hired man.”

“Well, isn’t that interesting! I was just about to pay a call on Mrs.—”

“No, you weren’t,” Cord interjected.

“Well, why ever not? I only want to extend a friendly gesture.”

“You want a helluva lot more than that, Miss Moreland. And I’m not interested.”

The smile on the young woman’s face never wavered. “Oh, come now. I’m sure you don’t really mean that, do you, Cordell?”

Molly squirmed. “Oh, yes he does!” she shouted.

Cord could have kissed her. He spotted Danny across the room. “Excuse us, Miss Moreland.”

He met the boy halfway across the room. “Didja see me, Cord? Was I all right?”

Cord dipped to extend his hand to Danny without dislodging Molly. “You were very all right, Dan. Congratulations.”

He took the boy’s small hand in his and gave him a firm, manly handshake. Danny grinned up at him and Cord thought the boy was going to float up off the floor.

After cups of watery lemonade and too many chocolate cookies, Cord herded his little entourage out the door and across the schoolyard to their waiting wagon. He tightened the cinch on the gray horse, lifted Molly into the back and watched Danny climb in beside her. Then he walked around to the other side, where Eleanor stood.

He didn’t even ask, just slipped both hands around her waist and lifted her onto the wooden seat. She said nothing until he drove out of the schoolyard and started on the road out of town.

Chapter Seven

“It must be wonderful to be young and pretty,” Eleanor said at last. She kept her voice down so Molly and Danny in the back of the wagon couldn’t hear.

“It’s wonderful to be young, for sure,” Cord said. “Don’t know about being ‘pretty.’”

“Men don’t worry about ‘pretty.’ Women do.”

“Are you jealous of Fanny Moreland?”

Eleanor jerked. Oh, Cord could be so maddeningly blunt! No, she wasn’t jealous of Fanny. She did envy her boldness, though. She was jealous of Fanny’s youth. She acknowledged that she had squandered her own, trying to be a good mother to Danny and Molly and struggling to keep her farm going through winter storms and scorching summers that left vegetable seedlings dried up as soon as they sprouted. Now she was thin and tired and...not young anymore.

And she envied Fanny Moreland’s health.

“Cord, do you ever wish you could be young again?”

He surprised her with a harsh laugh. “Young and what, handsome? Rich? Smart?” He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I wish I was young enough to live some parts of my life over again.”

“What parts?”

He didn’t answer. She regretted her question the instant she uttered it; it was none of her business. Then after a tense minute or two of silence he surprised her by answering.

“Maybe getting married. Getting shot during the War.” He let out a long breath. “Killing a man.”

She gasped. “You killed a man?”

“I killed more than one in the War, Eleanor.”

The tone of his voice made her wish she had never asked.

Cord glanced quickly into the back of the wagon, where both Eleanor’s children were asleep. “Tell me about Fanny Moreland,” he said. He held his breath. It was obvious Eleanor didn’t like her. But he didn’t want to talk about his wife.

“Oh, Fanny.” Eleanor shifted on the bench next to him. “I guess it’s sad, really. Fanny is from the South. New Orleans, I think. She lives with her aunt, Ike Bruhn’s wife, Ernestine. And Ike, of course.”

“Why is that sad?”

“Well, Fanny has pots of money she inherited from her father. About three years ago she was jilted, left at the altar by a man Ernestine said was just after her fortune. Her father sent her out West to get her away from the city.”

Cord laughed. “Smoke River’s about as far from ‘a city’ as one can get.”

“Fanny has no use for small towns, and she is desperately looking for some man to spirit her away from here to a big city. Any big city.”

Cord made a noncommittal noise in his throat.

“Why?” Eleanor asked. “Are you interested in Fanny?”

“Not much. She doesn’t look like the type who’d be too interested in panning for gold in a California mining camp.”

“How do you know?”

He chuckled. “Too many expensive ruffles.”

Eleanor laughed out loud, and Cord shot her a look.

“You feeling better now that this school shindig is over?”

She nodded, but he noticed she was still twisting her hands together in her lap. He flapped the reins over the gray’s back and picked up the pace. After a moment he slowed the horse down again. Something had been crawling at the back of his mind for the last few days.

“You said that Mrs. Halliday’s first husband was killed in the War. Are you sure that’s what happened to Mr. Malloy?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, and before she did she checked to make sure Molly and Danny were asleep. “I—I don’t honestly know what happened to Tom. If he had been killed, you would think they would notify the next of kin.”

“Maybe. Maybe they didn’t know where to find you.”

“How could they not know? I’ve lived on this farm since before the War.”

“Or maybe,” he said with studied calm, “he’s not dead.” He shot a look at her. Her face changed, but not in the way he expected. Her mouth thinned into a straight line, and she stared down at her clenched hands.

He couldn’t blame her. “I guess you don’t want to talk about your husband.”

“And you don’t want to talk about your wife,” she replied.

“Ex-wife. She divorced me after I—did something I lived to regret.”

He sucked in a breath and let it out in an uneven sigh.

“Oh, Cord,” she breathed. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Don’t be sorry, Eleanor. I’m not.”

In silence he drove up to the gate, climbed down to unlatch it, then guided the rattling wooden wagon up to the front porch. Molly popped up behind them. “Are we home?”

“Yes, we’re home,” Eleanor said. “Wake up Danny.”

Cord lifted both sleepy children out of the wagon bed and carried them up the front steps. Then he returned and reached up for Eleanor. He half expected her to stiffen up and brush past him and climb down by herself, but she let him circle her waist with his hands and swing her down to the ground.

“I’ll drive the wagon around in back of the barn, so I’ll say good-night now. It’s been an...interesting evening.”

Again he glimpsed that half-amused expression on her pale face. “Good night, Cord. I’m making French toast for breakfast tomorrow, so don’t be late.”

French toast? What in blazes is that?

She herded the kids through the front door screen and he heard them clatter up the staircase. He waited, but he didn’t hear the click of the lock on the front door. Was she crazy? Way out here with two kids and a revolver she didn’t know how to fire and she didn’t lock her front door at night?

He shook his head and climbed back onto the wagon bench. He’d argue it over with her tomorrow morning while eating her “French toast.”