Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (4 page)

"$500. a month with room and board." Deke
wondered why it was taking her so long to answer.

Emma chewed nervously at her bottom lip for a
moment. "I don't know. The money sounds good, but you're a total
stranger. You might be used to doing business this quickly but I
like to think things through."

She gave Deke a quick once over. And then
after a wink and nod from Bertha she added, "I don't guess I have
much choice do I? I'd have to pack."

"Naturally."

"You'd take me on just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Then I should tell you–" She began only to
be cut short.

He raised a hand to stay her words. "No
ma'am. Your life is your business. I'm looking for an cook, not a
wife."

Why that word shot out of his mouth he wasn't
sure, but it was out and he wasn't about to retract it.

"But you should know–."

"You married?" He blurted. He'd be up front,
and hoped she'd be the same. He didn't have time to pussyfoot
around. He needed an answer.

"No, but . . . ."

Great, as long as she wasn't married, that
was the main thing. There was plenty of time to unravel Emma Smith.
Right now he was too busy putting his plan into action.

"Then we can straighten out the details
later. Right now, I just don't have the time."

He glanced out the kitchen window and swore
under his breath, "Dammit, Steve's out there talking to Clint. Run
out there and tell Clint he better not run off with him, will ya
Andy. We gotta eat and get back. The ranch is a ways from town, and
we still got a days work to do when we get back."

Andy nodded.

"Look, we'd be taking you on for as long as
you'd want to stay." He heard himself say, despite his
reservations. "You'd be family. Be treated as such. How does that
sound? I can personally guarantee no one would lay a hand on
you."

"It sounds . . . nice." Her voice suddenly
softened. "But do you always hire on the spot like this?"

"No, but that's just it. I'm in a spot, so's
everybody else. Besides, I got a nose for good people. Now, I'll
tell you beforehand it's lonely out there. Some gals don't like all
that quiet. It's understandable. And if you find you're one of
those, you're free to leave, just give me some time to replace you.
Is all I ask."

"There'd be no problem there," Emma
murmured.

She was definitely hiding from someone. He'd
find out, but right now he wasn't too anxious to add to his own
problems.

"So what do you say?"

"I say, good luck Andy, and goodbye, Bertha.
I guess I'm working for you–Mr.–uh, Travers, did you say?" She
handed the apron to Andy who walked back into the kitchen.

"Great, problem solved, Bertha. The ranch is
about thirty miles south of town. Bertha will give you directions.
Come as soon as you can."

Deke left them all standing with their mouths
open as he rejoined his brothers.

"So what have you been up to, big brother?"
Jake cast him a suspicious glance as Deke slid into the booth
again.

"I just hired us a cook and housekeeper."
Deke declared his eyes going around the table stopping on Clint.
He'd found a solution. The smell of Emma's cooking was making his
mouth water.

He knew just how to settle Clint's roaming
butt down. If Clint couldn't read the signs from Abby, then Deke
would do a little matchmaking himself. Marry him off. And poor
unsuspecting Emma would be the first bride on the 4 Bar None Ranch
in over thirty one years.

"What have I done," Emma muttered aloud.
"Taking a job with a complete stranger, heading for God only knows
where, with the truck from hell."

The old truck spit out one big puff of smoke,
and died right in the middle of the road, as though on cue. She
turned the ignition. Nothing happened. Steam sputtered from the
hood. Emma groaned.

She glanced over at Sammie Jo. Luckily the
baby had gone to sleep. Emma envied her. Fifteen month old Sammie
Jo constantly surprised her with her amazing ability to adapt to
almost any situation.

Lightly kissing her on the forehead, Emma
slid out of the truck, and raised the hood. She jerked her hand
away from the hot hood. She should have known better, she silently
scolded herself. She'd looked under hoods before.

Noticing a big puddle of water beneath the
engine and steam rising from its source, she grimaced. This wasn't
good! Melting rubber permeated the air. Tugging the hose she
spotted a huge hole and jumped away before it spat in her face. How
many times had Charlie warned her about busted hoses. Good thing he
wasn't around, he'd certainly have a good laugh at her expense.

Not the right time to think about Charlie,
either. He was history. All cowboys were. From now on she was
setting her cap for a man in a business suit with a nine to five
job. If she set her cap at all. If she could juggle motherhood and
a job she might not need or want a husband.

For once in her life, there was no one to
reprimand her, not her father, her three brothers, nor Charlie.

If only she had checked the water before she
left the gas station. How could she have been so stupid?

"Now what?" She shaded her eyes and glanced
down the road. From the looks of the map Bertha had drawn it was
still miles to the ranch. Too far to walk with a baby.

"Just my luck."

She glanced through the windshield at Sammie
Jo. The baby needed feeding and changing. Her diaper had to be
drenched, and Emma felt lucky she wasn't screaming her head off
from teething.

"Serves me right," Emma said shaking her head
with disgust. "after all Charlie taught me, you'd think I'd
learn."

Charlie again. She should have put him
entirely out of her mind by now. Should have. Still as time went on
she found herself wondering if he hadn't been right all along, she
couldn't handle this.

What had he said? Funny, a few months ago she
could quote him word for word. "You know nothing about babies. It
isn't your place. You're deliberately ruining our chances of
marriage. Let her grandfather take her."

Grandfather? Sammie Jo for all general
purposes didn't have a grandfather. It had been Mr. Collins himself
that refused to believe Kate was having his son's baby. That's why
Kate made her promise to take care of Sammie Jo. That's why she
left Emma custody in her will.

That had done it. Charlie clearly wanted no
part of Emma if she was going to take the baby and raise it as her
own. It wasn't right, he had said. It wasn't as if the baby didn't
have kinfolk. And just remembering those words brought all her
determination front and center.

Joel Collins hadn't wanted that
responsibility. Emma had. She loved Sammie Jo with all her heart
and soul. But the elder Mr. Collins became interested after Kate
died. He even wrote a letter requesting to see the baby. Fear of
losing Sammie Jo had put Emma on the run.

Hot, tired, and frustrated she leaned
negligently against the side of the truck, feeling the sweat
trickle down her back and stick to her T-shirt. Panic threatened,
draining her strength. Shaking her head, she threw her hands on her
hips. She could handle this. She slid her boot against the gravel
and watched as the dust settled on top. Things could be worse.

Six months of being mother, father, and
sibling to Sammie Jo had taken its toll on Emma. Six months and
still she couldn't be certain of her rights. She had to find a
lawyer.

In normal times Frank, her oldest brother
would be around to help, but these weren't normal times. She left
anything close to normal back in East Texas. For the first time in
twenty-four years she was truly on her own. A year ago she might
have thought it exciting. Now she knew better.

"Oh Frank, where are you now?"

She glanced at Sammie Jo again. Somehow,
looking at the baby made her stronger. "Thank God you're such a
good baby."

Sammie Jo leaned to one side of her car seat,
sweating and sleeping, an angelic expression on her face. Emma
envied her again.

Turning around she looked down the long dusty
road. Six thirty and still hot enough to boil sweat. The sun exuded
a bright orange haze in the lower western sky. Would her new boss
be expecting his supper from her tonight? Something about the man
seemed so familiar she only wished she could put her finger on it.
Maybe she'd seen him in Devil's Corners before. Still, that mystery
would have to wait, she had other, more immediate problems.

Would she even have a job when she reached
the ranch. And then there was the slight problem of Sammie Jo. The
fact that she hadn't mentioned the baby.

First things first, she sighed, rule number
one by Frank Smith. "Take care of yourself first, then tend to the
rest. And never go anywhere without water." He would say. Now she
remembered it. God, she missed him. She missed Sam and Jesse too,
but Frank had been her protector from the day she was born. Her
oldest brother had protected her from their over-bearing father who
refused to acknowledge he even had a daughter. Somehow none of that
seemed to matter now. She was on her own and no one was going to
step in and help.

She walked to the back of the truck and
hauled her big jug of water to the side so she could get a drink.
She gulped it, then took a dampened wipe to Sammie Jo's forehead.
The baby sighed, but didn't wake.

If it weren't for the baby, she could walk
the distance and get help, but she couldn't leave Sammie Jo, and
she doubted she could carry her as far as she needed. Sammie Jo
could walk now, but not in those sad excuse for sandals, Emma
grimaced. Shoes she meant to replace last Saturday but she had to
work. She bit her lower lip. When was being a mother suppose to get
easier?

She opened the door to her side of the truck,
allowing what little breeze there was to filter through the cab.
Sitting on the sideboard, Emma occasionally glanced from the baby
to the road.

She'd wait a while, and if no miracles
occurred she would try to start the truck again. She believed in
miracles, hopes, dreams. Even Charlie hadn't ruined that for her.
Hopes and dreams had kept her going.

Minutes ticked in her head as the heat bore
down on her.

Finally checking her watch she decided to
give it another try. The engine made a loud noise, but nothing
happened and she didn't want to run the battery down, so she turned
off the ignition, hopped out of the truck and began to pace.

Second rule, don't panic. Frank would have
told her in that same steady voice of his to calm down and take a
long look at her troubles before she got all riled.

She couldn't sit here in the middle of
nowhere and do nothing, although it seemed the better part of
valor. Third rule, act.

Act?

What did a woman with a fifteen month old
baby do in the middle of the Texas desert with a broken down truck?
Where were the manuals for such disasters?

Emma had always coped with one problem at a
time, as they arose. She felt proud she could. But life had become
a nightmare since she'd left home, with new problems arising and no
one to depend on to help her resolve them. She was tired of being
alone, tired of struggling to make ends meet. What did she know how
to do, besides cook and clean? If her father hadn't insisted that
she had an obligation to fulfill to her brothers and him, she might
have gone on to college. She had good enough grades. But her father
was from the old school. He believed a woman's place was in the
home. So that's where Emma had dutifully stayed for the past
twenty-four years.

Kate's dying had changed all that. Oh dear,
she didn't want to think of Kate's dying again. It had left such a
profound silence within her. The dry lump in her throat
swelled.

Poor Kate, dying at the tender age of twenty
of kidney failure. She had risked her very life to bring Sammie Jo
into the world, knowing she had severe diabetes. Knowing it could
kill her. Yet she had braved it with jubilation. The doctors had
warned her. She wouldn't listen. She was already in love with the
prospect of being a mother. What a beautiful mother Kate had been
for those precious eleven months. Kate had fought such a brave
struggle to regain her strength after Sammie Jo was born. But she'd
had been too weak, and her illness had caught up to her. And Emma
had lost her lifelong friend, closest female cousin, and the
exuberance of her own youth. A tear rolled down Emma's cheek. A
tear for Kate, and a tear for Sammie Jo. Emma gulped the sigh back
and swiped her cheek with the tail of her T-shirt.

She wouldn't cry. Hal T. Smith wouldn't cry.
She was his daughter, and she wouldn't cry either.

She had an immediate problem to take care of.
She couldn't indulge in memories right now. Tears were wasted
energy, her father had told her years ago. Besides, it did no good.
Kate was gone, Joel had left her and the baby, and Emma now had a
baby to tend to.

It was half an hour later that Emma spotted
something in the distance. At first she wasn't sure, but as it got
closer she jumped, yelled and laughed.

"Thank God," she nearly shouted. And then it
hit her. My God, he was the one she had run into. That silhouette
stood out in the evening sun like a ghost come back to haunt
her.

It was the boss on horseback. Like a knight
in shining armor. She'd be rescued, or would she?

Feeling that same strange tension she had
felt when she first met Deke Travers on that stormy night, she
gathered herself. Her heartbeat quickened, her palms itched, and
she felt all of fourteen again. She didn't want to feel fourteen,
she didn't want to be attracted to this man that might soon be an
enemy, but darn it, she couldn't help herself. Something about this
gorgeous cowboy made her feel things she'd never experienced
before. Not even with Charlie.