Ana Seymour - Lucky Bride

“Home sweet home, lad. It’s not as comfortable as up at the house, but I guess you’ve probably seen worse in your day.”

Parker made no reply. Though his parents had spent most of the family money trying to convert the world to their various causes of abolitionism, temperance and so on, the money from his father’s bank had been enough that the Prescott family had lived in considerable luxury compared with most of the rest of the country. Except for his few months in the Black Hills, Parker had never awakened in the morning without stepping on a carpet, never had to go out the back of the house in the middle of a January freeze to relieve himself. He’d never gone to sleep in a room without real windows with linen drapes and a real bed with a silk coverlet. “I reckon this will be just fine, Smokey,” he said, surveying the barren room. There were five bunk beds lining the walls and a big round table in the center. In one corner of the room was a stack of wood piled next to a rusty iron stove.

“You can light up the stove,” Smokey said. “And I’d take the bunk right next to it, if I was you. This thaw’s not going to last, and it can get colder’n a whore’s heart in here.”

Parker grinned at the old man.’ “Now, just what would you know about whores, Smokey?”

The cook scraped a boot along the dusty wood floor. “I know a thing or two about them, you young whippersnapper. Just because I’m long in the tooth doesn’t mean—”

He stopped his sentence dead and stared over Parker’s shoulder.

“I see you’re making Mr. Prescott comfortable, Smokey,” Molly said in a voice that was as frosty as the room.

“Shucks, Miss Molly. You shouldn’t sneak up on a body like that. We was having a conversation not fit for a lady’s ears.”

Parker had the fleeting impression that Molly had set her face in those stern lines in order to keep from laughing, but when she started to speak again he decided he must have been mistaken.

“There’s not a conversation that goes on around this ranch that’s not fit for my ears, Smokey. I’ve told you that before.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Smokey did not seem to take the dressing-down too seriously.

“If you’re finished here, I’d like to speak with Mr. Prescott.”

Smokey looked from her to Parker, then gave a nod and made his way around her and out the door.

Parker waited for Molly to speak, but she seemed to be uncharacteristically at a loss for words. She looked at the ground, then back up to his face with a sweep of long eyelashes several shades darker than her light brown hair. Her eyes were as blue as her sisters’, he noted. More so. Or perhaps it was just the difference in intensity. Finally he said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

She bit her lip. “How are you feeling, Mr. Prescott? I mean… ah…. are you sufficiently recovered to…”

“To be cast out into a freezing bunkhouse?” Parker finished for her, amused at what was apparently a rare attack of conscience.

“I just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t get sick on us again,” she said stiffly.

“I don’t think I’d dare risk it, ma’am.”

“And why’s that, Mr. Prescott?”

“Because, ma’am,” he said respectfully, “I might end up staked out for buzzard meat in Copper Canyon.”

Molly gave a half smile and the lashes swept down again. “I did mean the warning about my sisters, Mr. Parker.”

“I know that, Miss Molly. May I call you that?” He ducked his head a little to catch her eyes, then gave her one of his made-for-charm smiles. “Seeing as how there’re three Miss Hankses, it could get confusing around here if we insist on all the formalities.”

Molly took in a little gulp of air. She would rather swill the pigs on a ninety-degree day than admit it, but she reckoned that Parker Prescott was just about the handsomest thing she’d ever seen. There’d been a heap of cowboys who’d come and gone at the Lucky Stars since Molly had been old enough to notice, but there’d never been one like him. Of course, Canyon City was hardly the place to find the pick of the crop. But even when she’d traveled to Denver with Papa, where one might expect to find other “gentlemen,” as her sisters described them, she’d not seen the like. He was waiting for an answer. What had he just asked her?

“Ah… three Miss Hankses. Yes, I see your point. I suppose Miss Molly would be acceptable, Mr. Prescott.”

Parker leaned back against the table, crossed his arms and studied her. “So then…I guess you’ll have to call me Parker. Or else it would be too impertinent of me to call you Miss Molly.”

Molly felt as if the entire conversation was out of her control. It was an unaccustomed sensation, and one she was not sure she liked. “Fine. Names aren’t of that great importance out here, anyway, Mr.—Parker. I suppose back East you pay more attention to those things.”

“I suppose.”

“You are from the East?”

Parker nodded. “New York.”

Molly’s eyes widened. “New York City?”

“Mmm,” he confirmed with another nod.

She wanted to say, What in tarnation are you doing in Canyon City, Wyoming, Mr. Parker Prescott? But the unwritten law of the West was you didn’t ask about things that were none of your business. So instead, she said, “Well, I just wanted to see if you were settled in.”

“And to see if I was healthy enough to sleep out here in the cold.”

Her brief moment of remorse or whatever it had been appeared to be over. “There’s a wagonload of wood out there. As soon as you’re feeling up to it, I suggest you start chopping.”

Parker let his grin break through. This was the real Molly Hanks. He was beginning to consider it a challenge to see how riled he could get her without risking losing his job. It was an unfair contest, really, because he knew that she wouldn’t have kept him on at all if she hadn’t needed him desperately. “I’ll do that, ma’am,” he told her.

“So you do feel recovered?” She took a step closer to him. He unfolded his arms and grasped the edge of the table as she reached up to touch one of his ears. The swelling had gone down, but their color was still far from normal. Her hand was surprisingly gentle. She smelled of saddle soap.

Suddenly she seemed to be aware of how close their bodies had become. She backed away with a little stumble and her voice once again lost its power. “If you start to feel dizzy or anything, you let us know.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked uncertainly from him to the cold stove. “Can you get a fire started in that thing?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The gear he had packed on his horse was already piled in a heap in the middle of one of the bunks. “I’ll have Smokey bring you out some warmer bedding,” she said.

“That would be very kind.” There was uncertainty in her eyes. Parker had the feeling that if he wanted to plead his case, she would change her mind and tell him to come back over to the big house. But as he was considering the possibility, he remembered the reason for his exile, and apparently she did, too.

“I did warn you about my sisters.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I mean…Susannah told me that it was all her fault and that she was just trying to bother Jeremy….” She was still wavering. It was almost as if she was trying to give him an argument to change her mind. But Parker had decided he would not press the issue at the moment. If he talked her into letting him stay up at the house a few more days, then he’d be on the owing side. This way, he had Miss Molly feeling sorry for him, and more than a little guilty. Leave a little on the table, his father always used to say. You never know when you’ll need to call in a debt. Parker had come west to avoid working the rest of his life at the family bank, but he supposed that he’d picked up some of his father’s negotiating skills somewhere along the line.