The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance (23 page)

Moments later the sizzling bacon was spewing grease in the fire like gunpowder. Flames licked eagerly at the meat in the pan.

Macky’s attempt to raise the skillet resulted in her pouring part of the grease directly into the fire and she had to jerk the pan away from the flames. Finally, with a burned
finger and a splat of grease on her arm, Macky decided that if the bacon wasn’t done, it was close enough.

She laid the meat on a plate, then poured some water from the kettle into the grease, sending a splattering cloud of smoke in the air. Finally, she stirred in the flour and shoved it back into the fire. Then she hung the kettle on a hook suspended from the other side of the fireplace.

By the time the water began to boil, her hair was hanging in wisps. Perspiration and soot ran down her face. And the smell from the skillet announced that at least the bottom of her bread was cooking, too much, too quickly.

“Horsefeathers!” she swore. “Even Solomon wouldn’t eat this.”

She squatted before the fire, wiping her forehead on her sleeve, wishing Papa had taught her to make bread, regretting her ignorance.

“What I deserve is ‘just death, kind umpire of men’s miseries,’ eh, Mr. Shakespeare?”

A low familiar laugh answered. “Am I to assume ‘there is death in the pot’?”

Macky came to her feet in a rush and whirled around. “Not yet, but I’m working on it. I think it was Aesop who said, ‘don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.’ ”

Bran walked past her and, wearing his gloves, lifted the skillet from the fire. “This looks—interesting. What is it?”

“Biscuits. That’s what you ordered, isn’t it?”

“I take it biscuits aren’t your specialty?” He slid the edge of the knife under the clump of dough and, after several attempts, managed to turn the bread over. Shaking his head, he planted the skillet back over the fire and turned toward Macky.

Her eyes were shimmering with moisture, but Bran knew that the last thing he could expect from this woman was tears. She might very well swing the skillet at him, but she’d never apologize for her efforts.

“I don’t think you have had any more experience cooking
than I’ve had preaching,” Bran said. “What exactly are you good at?”

“Plowing a field,” she snapped. “Got one handy?”

He didn’t mean to rile her further, but everything about her was deadly right now, especially her temper. Still, he couldn’t contain a smile. Together they were like lightning in a storm, bouncing off the clouds and colliding with a streak of fire.

“Oh, Macky, what a treasure you are. How on earth are you going to manage what’s ahead?” He took a handkerchief from his pocket, moistened it in a pool of water she’d sloshed from the kettle and began to wash her face.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice losing its fury as her stomach flipped at his touch.

“The question is, what have you been doing in here? You look like a scullery maid.”

“That’s probably a step up from being a farmer,” she quipped. “And that’s what I ought to be doing instead of this, if you don’t want me to be a total embarrassment to you.”

He found himself reassuring her. “Nothing you could do would embarrass me, Macky. If you can’t cook, I’ll teach you.”

She groaned and closed her eyes. He couldn’t mean that. If the truth came out, not only would she embarrass him, she’d be arrested. Instead of taking cooking lessons, she should take herself into town and confess her crime to the marshal.

But first, she had to make things right.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Bran, about my past.”

His fingers continued to hold her chin. “You don’t need to explain anything to me.”

“Yes I do. I never meant to get involved. By the time I was, it was too late. I shouldn’t have kept going. I should have stayed to face my punishment.”

“Macky, I know you. If you ran, you had reason.”

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I saw him again, the man responsible. I was afraid he’d come after me.”

Bran swore and pulled Macky into his arms. “Then there is a man involved.”

“Not the way you think, Bran. I mean, we didn’t even know each other. He just offered me a ride into town and it happened before I knew.”

He didn’t know what she was trying to say. She’d already told him that she wasn’t going to have a baby, that her terrible secret could get her hung. Still, if there really was a man after her, Bran could protect her.

“I couldn’t save my sister, but if I get my hands on the man who took advantage of you, Macky, I’ll make him sorry he did.”

“No,” Macky said. “This man killed someone. He is very dangerous and he’s after me because I—I have something he wants. I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “I’ll go into town and confess the truth to the marshal. I don’t want to put you in danger.”

The marshal, the same man who might recognize the preacher as a kid named John Lee who was still wanted for murder. He ought to let her go, if for no other reason than she wasn’t safe with him. But if something happened and they took him away, who’d protect Macky?

“No, you can’t do that,” he said. “There are other things to consider.”

His left hand was rubbing a circle on her back, spreading heat throughout her body. The intensity of his motion was even beginning to give off a scorched odor. “What other things, Bran?”

A burning smell.

“The biscuits! Bran, the biscuits are on fire.”

This time when Bran attempted to rescue the skillet, he dropped it into the fire.

As if in an attempt to keep pace, the coffee boiled over,
falling into the pan, dousing the flames and spitting the scalding droplets across the floor.

“Well.” Macky gulped in air through peals of laughter. “You wanted coffee and biscuits. Help yourself.”

The moment of revelation passed while Bran and Macky laughed until they were out of breath.

Later they peeled the burned crusts from the bread and ate it with the chunks of bacon. The coffee, once Bran added more water and let it reheat, was just about right.

Then, without knowing why, Bran began to talk. He told her about the Choctaw tribe he’d gone to live with when his family was killed. He talked about his Indian parents, about the good times, and the bad ones. He told her of the terrible winters they’d faced in the West and how the white men constantly forced them off their land. Then later, he told her how the same government officials who were supposed to keep them supplied with food and goods cheated them instead. But he stopped short of telling her about his adoptive brother, Blue, and how he’d killed a soldier to save Blue’s life.

Macky told him about their home back East, about her father’s store on the Mississippi, and about her brother as a boy.

Neither talked about tomorrow or what would happen then. They grabbed on to the present and the sharing of their pasts. The evening passed in a rare mood of companionship that neither wanted to examine too closely.

As the fire began to die down, Bran banked it for the night and took the skillet to the creek to wash it. Macky put away the food supplies and swept the crumbs from the floor.

When Bran returned, he closed and bolted the door. “Macky, about what you were saying earlier. I respect your need for secrecy. Let’s don’t make a decision yet. Let’s think about it until after the housewarming. There’s plenty of time for you to talk to the marshal.”

Macky wasn’t so sure about that, but she agreed and placed her makeshift broom, made of a broken branch, in
the corner. Her fears that she’d have to share Bran’s bed were alleviated when he gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead and said he’d take the loft.

“But it’s full of dirt and spiders,” she protested.

“Just about right,” he agreed, “for a snake.”

L
orraine arrived at the cabin shortly after noon, driving a wagon filled with lumber. “Are you sure you want me here?” she asked Macky, not even trying to conceal the reservations in her voice.

“Absolutely sure. I need a friend.”

“Hello, Reverend,” Lorraine said as Bran came from the shed to greet her. “Help me unload these boards.”

“What are you going to do with them?” Bran asked, pulling the planks out the back of the wagon.

“Hank Clay says he’ll use these to make the tables.” Lorraine glanced around, her gaze stopping at the stand of cottonwood trees near the creek. “Let’s set them up there.”

“Tables?” Macky echoed. “How many people do you expect?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never been to a housewarming.”

“Why not?” Macky asked. “I thought they were common.”

“Never been invited.”

Macky took the end of one of the boards and helped Lorraine carry it to the spot where Bran was piling them. “Heck, I was hoping you could tell me what to do.”

“ ’Fraid not. You’ve had more experience with church socials than me.”

“I wish,” was Macky’s plaintive response.

“All I know is there will be children, ranch hands, and miners. They always seem to know when there is free food, and I heard Clara talking about musicians. I guess that means we’ll—they’ll dance.”

Musicians?
This time Macky didn’t echo her words out loud. But dancing was something she’d never considered.

“And there’s the marshal and the judge,” she went on. “Clara even told me that she was frying chicken.”

“Something unusual about that?” Bran asked, as he pulled the last of the lumber from the wagon.

“Frying chicken? No. It’s her telling me that’s unusual.

Macky followed Bran to the stack of lumber. She was as surprised at Clara’s carrying on a conversation with Lorraine as Lorraine was. Maybe there was something to be said for a little meddling in the name of religion. “How are we going to make tables out of this?”

“Don’t have to,” Lorraine answered for him. “Hank Clay is right behind me with some legs he’s put together at his shop. All we have to do is wait—look, there he is now.”

Hank was driving his own wagon, stacked with odd-looking pieces of wood and iron, fastened into crosspieces which would support the wooden planks.

“Morning, Mrs. Adams,” Hank said, crawling from the wagon. “We’ll have these tables put together in no time.”

Helplessly, Macky watched as Hank hitched his suspenders higher on his shoulders and rolled up his shirtsleeves. She’d seen more than one late snowstorm hit the territory, but this year, the surprisingly warm weather had continued, and in no time Bran and Hank had worked up a pleasant sweat.

As the tables were assembled, Macky and Lorraine worked together covering them with bed sheets sent by the women in town. By the time they were finished, Lorraine turned to Kate and studied her. “I think you have about enough time to clean up and dress while Hank and I start your cooking fire and put the coffee on.”

“Oh!” Macky looked down at her pants and shirt and blushed. Though neither Lorraine nor Hank had commented, she certainly looked more like one of the miners than the preacher’s wife.

“Clara says we’ll have lemonade too, and maybe some punch, but the men will need coffee, particularly if somebody spikes the punch.”

“Yes, of course,” Macky managed to say, trying to hide her ignorance about social events. She’d attended one or two when she and Papa had first moved to Promise. But after Papa made it clear that he wasn’t a farmer and had no intention of remarrying, the invitations had stopped coming. It looked as if she were about to learn.

Quickly Macky dashed into the house, assembled her green-checked dress, underclothes, and a drying cloth, and set out to find a private bathing spot along the stream.

“I’ll take you to a good place, Macky.” Bran’s voice surprised her. She wasn’t aware that he was behind her.

He walked along the bank, following the rip in the earth through which the water flowed. When Macky hesitated, he reached back and took her hand to assist her across the boulders and through the brush. “There’s a pool up here where we can bathe, out of sight.”

“We?” There was no hiding the quiver in her voice.

“That was a general statement, Macky. Relax, we have to get through the day. Don’t get spooked before it even starts.”

The thought of them bathing together sent a frisson of fear down Macky’s spine and she stumbled, twisting her ankle as she fell.

Bran quickly lifted her up. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so. I just stepped wrong. Let me go.”

Being so close to Bran was setting off more vibrations than the twisted ankle. Bran released her. She took a step forward, winced, and kept walking.

The pain in her ankle was sharp and searing, but she refused to give in. It wasn’t going to stop her—but, wait a minute. With a sprained ankle she wouldn’t have to reveal that she couldn’t dance. Suddenly she let out a moan and reached back for Bran.

“Maybe I do need some help,” she said.

Bran didn’t have to be a scholar to see that Macky was exaggerating, but he couldn’t figure out why. If she wanted to be hurt, he’d go along. “Of course,” he said with a grin and swung her up in his arms.

“Bran! Put me down. I’m too heavy for you to carry.”

“Macky, you’re not too heavy. I’m a big man, or haven’t you noticed? Besides, what kind of husband would allow his wife to walk on an injured ankle? Up ahead there is a deep pool where you can soak it in icy water. It’ll keep down the swelling and you’ll be able to dance a jig with the best of them.”

Macky groaned again and this time it wasn’t put on. This wasn’t working out as she’d expected. Then Bran pushed through a growth of evergreen brush and they were beside a pool of water that came from a waterfall above.

“Oh, this is beautiful,” Macky said, awed by the picture. “How did you know this was here?”

“I was looking for Kelley’s mine this morning while you were sleeping.”

“Did you find it?”

“I found where he’d been prospecting, yes. But I can’t say that it looked promising.” He put her down on a rock. “Let me help you.”

He took the clothing she was clasping to her chest and laid it aside. Then he began to unfasten her boots.

She slapped his hand away. “I can do this,” she insisted, unlacing and removing her brother’s boot. “I mean, really I can. You can go now. I’ll get back to the house by myself.”