Big Sky Rancher Page 4

  “This is my room?” she asked, already knowing the answer she would hear.

  “I thought I made it clear that we would share this bed,” Lucas told her, his voice patient, as though he spoke to a child who was extremely dense. “Now sit down, Jennifer.”

  “Where?” She looked up at him, dazed and frightened by the turn of events.

  “Right here, sweetheart, on the mattress.”

  She looked down at the quilt, glanced at the pillows, fluffed and waiting for a weary head to be cushioned by their fullness, and then looked back at the man who expected her to comply with his wishes.

  “I’d prefer a chair,” she said, her challenge obvious, even to a man as thick-headed as Lucas O’Reilly appeared to be.

  “How about my lap?” he asked, and then turned to perch on the mattress, pulling her across his lap. It was a soft bed, a fluffy feather tick it seemed, and she felt Lucas sinking into its depths.

  “Please, Lucas,” she managed to whisper and then her throat went dry and she lost her ability to speak.

  “You still think I’m going to hurt you?” he asked, and it seemed he was sincere in his concern. “I have no intention of causing you harm, honey. I was joking before when I told you I’d brought harm to another woman. Never have. Never will.” He grinned at her, holding her upright on his muscled thighs. They felt like two solid logs beneath her, with no give to cushion her bottom.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, denying the panic that threatened to choke her.

  “Yes, you are,” he said, apparently more aware of her state of mind than she’d given him credit for. “But there’s no need, Jennifer.”

  With a few easy moves, her placed her on her back, then lay beside her, his arms holding her, his legs trapping hers. “Comfortable now?” he asked, rising on one elbow, his free hand caressing her cheek.

  He was going to kiss her again. As surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning, she knew that look in his eyes. She turned her head away as he bent to her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “SEE NOW, this isn’t so bad, is it?” His drawl was more apparent when he lowered his voice.

  “I don’t want to be in your bed,” she whispered. “And I lied. You frighten me, holding me down, making me a prisoner.”

  “Then just relax, honey, and cuddle up with me for a minute or two.” He adjusted his position, sliding one arm beneath her head and lying down. She was pulled up tightly against him, her feet barely touching his shin bones, her head cushioned by his shoulder.

  “I’ve never done this before,” she protested. “I’m not accustomed to—”

  “I surely hope you’re new at this sort of thing, sweetheart. In fact, I’m counting on it. That way I can teach you how to be a wife, and you won’t have any notions stuck in your head about being modest and ladylike.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being modest. And I am a lady.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute, honey. And just to let you know, ladies are some of my favorite people.”

  Her mind swung back to the watching women who’d peopled the balcony above Pete’s Saloon in town. “I’ll just bet they are,” she said, her vivid imagination able to envision him climbing a set of stairs to a room, wherein waited several of those lush beauties.

  He frowned and changed his tack. “A little modesty goes a long way when it comes to two people in a bed,” he told her. “Especially when those two people are married.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been married before.”

  “Well, you are now. And you’re about to become a wife.”

  He’d waited long enough, given her enough time to get used to his touch, and his trousers were about to burst open on their own, given the pulsing erection he knew had to be pushing at her even now. Curved against him, surely she knew his problem. Certainly she had some glimmer as to what went on in bed between male and female.

  And then a thought struck him. What if she didn’t know? What if he’d married not only a virgin bride, but an ignorant virgin bride?

  “Jennifer?” He spoke her name softly, trying his best to reassure her. “Didn’t your mother tell you anything about marriage?”

  She tilted her chin up and shook her head, her eyes wide with what looked like fright. And well they might. She was pinned beneath a man almost twice her size, lying in the depths of a feather tick in his bedroom, the sun going down outside the windows, and no notion of what he intended. Yet she did not flinch from him, her body forming to his, softening against him, even as tears blinded her vision.

  “Hell and damnation,” he blurted, rolling from the bed, watching as her head fell to the pillow as he rose to his feet. “I can’t find it in me to force myself on a woman, no matter how horny I am. Even if that woman is my legal wife.”

  Jennifer sat up in the bed, which he knew was no easy task, given the soft contours of the feather tick beneath her. “Do you mean that?” she asked, wiping at the moisture on her cheeks.

  “I told you before, I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” he pointed out, his barely concealed anger emphasizing each word.

  “Well, in that case, I’ll just go down to the kitchen and make you something to eat,” she said, relief apparent in her voice as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “Just tell me where you keep the food and you can go about your chores while I put something together for supper.”

  He nodded as she clambered out of bed. “Leave the jacket off,” he said. “You’re home now. You don’t need to be formal here. In fact, there’s an apron of my mother’s you can put on over your clothes if you want to.”

  “Your mother’s apron?” Her eyes were shiny with fresh tears as she faced him and he felt more than a twinge of guilt that he’d put so much pressure on her. She was young and inexperienced at any number of things, it seemed. Yet, her youthful body pled silently for his touch, for he’d felt her breasts firm up beneath his hands, had noted the way she’d curled against him on the bed.

  “It was packed away in her things,” he replied. “I’ll get it for you and locate something for you to cook.”

  “I’m not very good at such things,” she warned him. “Things like cooking and such, I mean. My mother had a lady who kept our house and made all the meals.”

  “Your mother didn’t teach you to cook?” he asked, stunned by her revelation.

  “I never needed to.” Her eyes were frantic now, seeking the bedroom door, as if she might flee down the stairs and onto the back porch, given half a chance.

  “Well, you’re about to learn the hard way, ma’am.”

  He turned her around and escorted her from the room, then down the stairs to where he kept his food in a large pantry just off the kitchen. A curtain hung over the doorway, a limp bit of a rag. When he pushed it aside to allow them entry, it fell from the nails that held it in place, falling in a dusty heap on the floor.

  “In here,” he said, waving at the shelves, where cans and crocks held his supplies.

  Jennifer lent a dubious look to the collection, then stepped inside the small room and peered beneath the plate that covered a crock of pickles. “I don’t think you’ll want these for supper,” she murmured.

  A can of beef caught her eye and she snatched it up, then peeked carefully into a wide crockery bowl that held his supply of eggs. “How about fried eggs and sliced beef?” she asked.

  “Anything you fix will be just fine,” he told her, hoping to encourage her efforts.

  She caught sight of the calico apron then, hanging from a hook on the wall and lifted it from its resting place, placing the loop over her neck, allowing the apron to hang from her bosom to cover most of her dress.

  Luc turned her around, tied the strings in a credible bow and backed from the pantry. He’d given her enough of a shock for one day, he decided. Hanging around while she found her way in his kitchen was too much to expect her to accept.

  Jennifer gathered up the apron front, placed four e
ggs in the pocket formed there, and held it with one hand as she lifted the can of beef again and scanned the shelf for any more likely prospects.

  Coffee. If she could figure out how to make a decent pot of coffee, that might appease him. But first the pot must be washed, and then she’d find the supply of ground coffee.

  The kitchen was a welcome sight after standing in the confines of his pantry, with him so close to hand. He lifted a hand to her, waved a farewell and headed out the back door.

  “I’ll be the better part of an hour, by the time I do the milking and feed the stock.”

  And what feeding the stock entailed, she had no idea. In fact, she had no notion of what stock meant. Unless it referred to his cow and team of horses. And somewhere he must have a flock of chickens, given the presence of eggs in the pantry.

  She placed the four specimens she’d chosen on the table and sought out a clean pan. There didn’t appear to be one without some residue of food clinging to its surface, so she chose the least grimy of the lot and took it to the sink. Some glimmer of her mother’s cook wiping her iron skillets clean lingered in Jennifer’s head and she decided to forego the soap and water she’d thought to employ, depending instead of the services of a handy rag, dampened with clean water from the pump.

  The pan cleaned up nicely, much to her relief, and she replaced it on the stove. Only a faint warmth rose from the iron stovetop and she lifted one of the lids with a device stuck into it, bending to examine the coals within the black behemoth. There was an almost total lack of the blazing fire she’d hoped to find there. He’d left her with a cold stove and expected her to cook a meal.

  However, a nearby box held wood cut into assorted lengths, and she gathered several pieces in her arms. Most fit neatly into the hole from which a modicum of heat warmed her hand.

  She nudged three logs into place and watched with satisfaction as they settled down in the coals and took residence there.

  The clean pan was placed on what she hoped would be the hottest spot on the stove, and she turned to the coffeepot, pumping water into it, then rinsing it thoroughly before she scrubbed at it with her rag. For this task, she added a bit of soap, found beneath the sink on a chipped saucer.

  After a good washing she decided it was as clean as it was going to get, and filled it with water from the pump. At least the man had a good supply of what appeared to be clean water. That was a relief. She wouldn’t have to carry buckets from a well into the house.

  Back in the pantry, she found a metal can holding coffee grounds, from which she poured a generous portion into the coffeepot. And then, just for good measure, she filled the palm of her hand with more dark grounds and allowed the contents to float on the surface of the water. The pot would have to share the hot spot on the stove, she decided. She would wait for a few minutes before she cut the meat to put in the skillet, then cook the eggs last.

  Recalling the cook’s generous use of butter in her skillet, Jennifer searched for a covered dish on the kitchen cabinet and lifted the lid. To her relief, a full round of butter met her gaze. She found a knife in the dresser drawer and sliced off a hunk for her frying pan.

  Within ten minutes the coffeepot was bubbling away and she opened the can of meat, slicing it into thick layers in the bottom of the skillet. Placing it on the stove, she watched as it sizzled and sent forth an appetizing scent.

  Plying a utensil that appeared to be a pancake turner, she browned the meat on both sides and then watched in dismay as it flaked from neat slices to a mishmash of beef scraps.

  This was definitely not what she had planned, but there was no use in fretting about it, she thought. All she’d promised was food, not a gourmet feast, and food was exactly what he was going to get. Eggs and beef, mixed together, with perhaps a slice of bread alongside, if she could find a stray loaf in the kitchen.

  A covered plate contained held a partial loaf and she sliced it into uneven wedges, hoping Lucas wouldn’t care that his meal was not neat and tidy. The cook at home had always said that men were more interested in quantity than quality, and Jennifer was beginning to understand the basis of that statement.

  She broke the four eggs into the skillet and watched as they mixed readily with the meat. Sort of like hash, she decided, turning them in a haphazard manner, three of the four yolks breaking as she plopped them atop the simmering meat.

  She’d found two clean plates in the cabinet and searched out an assortment of knives and forks in a drawer. By the time Lucas arrived at the back door, a bucket of milk in one hand, a pan of eggs in the other, she was ready for him.

  He placed the milk pail in a corner, the eggs in the pantry, and headed for the sink. Water cascaded over his hands from the pump and he used the soap, much to his credit.

  She poured coffee from the pot into a cup for him, noting the dark grounds that floated on the surface but intent on ignoring them. Not so Lucas O’Reilly.

  “Didn’t you pour in a cup of cold water to settle the grounds?” he asked, pointing to the floating bits that emphasized her failings.

  “I didn’t know you were supposed to,” she said stiffly, ladling out a portion of her meal onto his plate.

  He looked down at it and frowned. “What’s this supposed to be?”

  “Supper,” she told him, daring him with a stern look to make any more inappropriate remarks. “Eat it before you complain.”

  Spreading butter over his hunk of bread, he did not call her attention to the odd-shaped slice, only placing it on the side of his plate and then picking up his fork.

  “Aren’t you going to say grace first?” she asked, eyeing his laden fork as he aimed it toward his mouth.

  “Grace,” he muttered. “What are you? One of those missionary women, wanting me to mumble words over my food?”

  “No, only a churchgoing wife, sir,” she said. “And if you won’t spare a moment to be thankful for your food, I’ll do it for you.” She bent her head and murmured words that somehow seemed insincere, even to her own ears.

  “I haven’t found much so far to be thankful for,” he said, chewing as he spoke. Picking up his coffee cup, he sipped the thick brew and sputtered the contents of his mouth onto his plate. “What the hell did you do to the coffee?” he shouted. “It tastes like you used the whole damn crock of it for one pot.”

  “I put in a handful,” she responded, holding her cupped palm to demonstrate her method.

  “Your hand isn’t big enough to hold the amount of coffee you used,” he argued. Reaching for it, he uncurled her fingers and examined her palm, as if some hidden message might be there for his interpretation. “Are you sure you only used one handful?”

  “I think so,” she said, “but now that you mention it, I’m not entirely sure. I may have added a bit more.” May have? She knew very well what she’d done and made a mental note to measure more accurately come morning.

  “This isn’t fit to drink,” he said, frowning at her. “Pour some more water into the pot and let it simmer for a while.”

  “I told you I wasn’t much of a cook,” she said, even as she rose to do as he’d asked. Asked? Ordered might be more to the point, she thought, wondering if she should protest his high-handedness. She thought better of it as she looked over her shoulder at his grimace.

  “I believe you now,” he told her, lifting his fork again to his lips, valiant in his effort to eat her offering of food.

  “It’s not bad-tasting,” she ventured, sitting again to finish her own meal.

  “Well, it sure as hell isn’t what I’d call a meal fit to eat,” he said. “Surely you could have found something else to do with this meat. Maybe make some gravy and put it on a slice of bread?”

  “Gravy?” she asked, frantically searching her mind for a vague memory of flour and water being stirred together and dumped into the drippings from a roast.

  “You do know what gravy is, don’t you?” he asked, his sarcasm unmistakable now.

  She rose from the table and lifted her plate,
carrying it to the sink, where she added it to the heaping stack of dishes he’d gathered up over the past days. “Actually,” she said in a soft voice, “I was wondering if you had any inkling what clean dishes look like.” She set aside the scrub rag she’d used on the skillet in favor of a clean dish towel she found in the kitchen drawer.

  She sorted the dishes, rinsed them and then stacked them in the dishpan, drizzling a form of liquid soap she found in a quart jar beneath the sink over the whole mess. Using a fairly clean saucepan, she scooped warm water from the reservoir at the side of the cookstove and dumped it over the dishes, then returned for more.

  “Why use a towel when a dish rag will do the job better?” he asked.

  “If you want to wash these dishes, you may use anything you like to get the job done,” she told him. “But if you’d like me to handle it, I’d suggest you leave well enough alone.”

  “That’s exactly why I married you,” he answered, obviously intent on getting her dander up.

  It worked. She held the sopping wet towel in one hand and faced him, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short gasps. The towel flew across the kitchen to where he sat, water scattering hither and yon as it headed toward him. Her aim was accurate, he’d give her that much, for the towel hit him squarely in the face, the soap she’d poured into the dishpan burning his eyes, the warm water wetting the front of his shirt in seconds.

  He stared at her in disbelief. Women were supposed to be well-mannered, biddable creatures; wives especially, he’d assumed. If Jennifer thought her actions came under the heading of obeying her husband, she was sadly mistaken. And, after all, the woman had promised to obey. He recalled her choking out the word, signifying her distaste for the vow she’d been forced to make.

  And now, she’d insulted him. Ignored his needs as a husband and failed as a cook. Not to mention the fact that she made terrible coffee.

  “Where on earth did you come from?” he asked. “You’re not a normal woman, Jennifer.”