Chapter Fourteen
On a cloudy day, the blue of Millicent Foster’s Boarding House and Eating Establishment was bright. On a sunny day like today, its bright blue and pink assaulted the senses. Stepping through the door didn’t alleviate the visual disarray. Millicent decorated to suit her impromptu likes and dislikes with complete disregard to style or even color coordination. Every table in the place sported a different table cloth. The attack continued with the sounds generated by the diners crowded into the small restaurant.
No one commented, though, because of the scents that teased ones nostrils. They were heavenly and only chaotic because the customer had to make a choice from the dinner menu. Millicent Foster could cook.
“Looks like quite a crowd tonight,” Elizabeth offered.
Asa looked around. “She’ll make a pretty penny off this crew.”
“Do you want to wait for a table?”
“Are you kidding?” left no doubt he wasn’t budging.
“Hey!” That’s my order! A blond man shouted from the table in front of the window. Elizabeth saw he had the waitress by the arm, prohibiting her from setting a plate on the adjacent table.
“Is not,” came the immediate response from a rough-looking man seated at the neighboring table.
“She might make some money,” Asa amended as both men jumped to their feet, “if the customers don’t bring the place down around her.”
Elizabeth smiled as the waitress, a young girl, hightailed it to the back, taking the disputed food with her. “Not if Millicent’s here.”
As she finished the sentence, an orange-haired tornado appeared among them, wielding a huge wooden spoon.
“Millicent?” Asa asked, the corner of his mouth kicking up in that familiar grin.
Elizabeth nodded, taking a step back from the door. Asa followed suit.
“You two have the manners of trash,” Millicent yelled. She punctuated her statement by bringing the wooden spoon down on their unprotected skulls. When they grabbed their heads, she pointed to the door. “Take yourselves out of here right now.” When they didn’t move fast enough, she whapped them again. “Out!”
“What about our dinner?”
“Yeah,” the other man hollered. “We paid for it!”
“Bessie!” Millicent yelled, brandishing her spoon and backing the men toward the door. “Bring these gentleman’s orders out here.”
Bessie handed the tray over. Millicent scooped it up in one of her hands. As soon as the men cleared the threshold, she pitched the entire tray after them. Food and curses filled the air. “You want to act like pigs in my establishment, then I’ll be slopping you like hogs.” She stood in the doorway, her six-foot tall frame blocking the light. “Don’t you dare set foot in this place again.”
“Aw, Milly!”
“Where we gonna eat?”
“Maybe that fancy hotel up the street will serve your kind.” She turned and slammed the door, almost running over Elizabeth on the way back to the kitchen.
“Elly!”
Her smile was as familiar as sunshine to Elizabeth. “Hi, Millicent.”
“This your new man I’ve heard talk about?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth smiled as Asa’s eyes widened in shock. Millicent had the husky voice of a siren when she wasn’t screeching. It was so incongruous with her build, it never failed to shock people. Mostly men. Millicent slapped him on the shoulder with a vigor that belied her fifty-plus years. “How ya doing?”
“Just fine.”
Elizabeth caught Asa’s hand “Asa MacIntyre, this is Millicent Foster.”
He brushed the brim of his hat with his fingers. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Millicent’s hearty laugh filled the room. “Hear that, gents? Elly’s done married a man who knows how to address a lady.” She took two steps to the counter, scooped a fresh baked pie off the shelf and waved it under Asa’s nose. “This here is for you after you get done with supper.”
Asa smiled that lazy, drawn out smile that inevitably made Elizabeth’s heart go pitter-patter. “Apple pie! My favorite. Haven’t had that in a coons age.”
Millicent beamed ear-to-ear. Elizabeth forgave him the lie. Millicent was one of her favorite people.
“Aw, heck, Milly,” the Sheriff called from the back of the restaurant. “I called you ma’am last week and I didn’t get no apple pie.”
Millicent snorted inelegantly as she waved Asa and Elizabeth to the table vacated by the blond railroader. “Who you think you’re kidding, Sheriff? You only called me ma’am cause you were being sarcastic.”
“Be fair, Milly.”
“Letting you eat my cooking is as fair as I’m getting!” She turned back to Elizabeth and Asa. “Now, what’ll you be having, Elly?”
Elizabeth unfolded her napkin across her lap. “I’d love a sweet potato.”
“As an appetizer, that’ll do, but what are you planning on for the meal?”
“I’m really not hungry.”
“Child, we’ve been over and over this. You won’t start putting meat on your bones unless you start putting food in your belly.”
“I’ll eat a big breakfast in the morning,” she promised, excruciatingly aware that Asa watched the exchange.
“So you say now, but I won’t be around to witness it.” Millicent heaved a sigh from her toes. The men at the next table got up to leave. She started piling their dishes onto her tray. “I know your daddy had a thing about how he thought a woman should look, but you gotta let it go.”
Elizabeth felt the old tightening in her belly. The churning nausea. She was aware of Asa’s eyes on her. “I’m just not hungry, Millicent.”
If she ate anything now, she’d be violently sick. She pinched the napkin between her fingers.
“Hrrmph!” Millicent wasn’t buying her excuse.
Elizabeth felt warm callused fingers slide over hers and found Asa looking at her. He nodded his head once and gave her fingers a soft squeeze. As his fingers wove between hers and loosened their grip from her napkin, he said, “I’ll take care of her, Miss Foster.”
This earned him a disbelieving snort and a hard glare. With a practiced hitch of her shoulder, Millicent balanced the loaded tray. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Not from me.”
Millicent stood and stared at Asa, saying nothing. Elizabeth felt the tension like a knife. She wanted Millicent to like Asa. After what seemed an eternity, Millicent proclaimed abruptly, “I’ve a feeling I’m going to like you.”
“Well, now, I was just having the same thought,” Asa replied. His hand now rested calmly on Elizabeth’s.
Millicent let loose with her booming laugh, causing all heads to turn their way. “Just for that, you get my chicken and dumplings to go with that pie.”
Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. If Millicent and Asa had taken to feuding, she couldn’t have borne it. Millicent was as close to a mother as she’d ever had. “You’re being honored,” she informed Asa as Millicent wove her way back to the kitchen.
Asa’s smile was gentle as he said, “I’ll reserve judgment on that until I taste her dumplings.”
* * * * *
The plate Millicent placed in front of Asa was laden with food. “You eat all that and I’ll get that pie.”
If he ate all that, Elizabeth decided, he’d be over to Doc’s getting medicine for a stomach ache.
“Check back in about ten minutes,” Asa said, his voice laced with confidence and anticipation.
Millicent beamed. “I do like a man who can eat.”
“In that case, ma’am,” Asa said as she placed a glass of water before him, “we’re going to get along fine.”
Millicent chuckled and turned to Elizabeth. Elizabeth braced herself for the disapproval she knew was coming. It landed in the thud of her sweet potato before her. “Here’s your order.”
Millicent jerked her thumb in Asa’s direction. “How you expecting to keep up with a man like that, let alone hold onto him, when you don’t have an ounce of meat on your bones?”
“Mr. MacIntyre is free to leave anytime he wants.” Elizabeth’s stomach clenched even as she made the statement.
Millicent could be brutal with her disapproval. “What kind of—”
Asa’s low drawl cut her off. “Don’t suppose she’s too worried about it, because she knows I’m not going anywhere.”
Millicent spun on him. “It’s a man’s nature to wander.” Her ever present wooden spoon punctuated the statement.
Asa calmly took a bite of dumpling. His expression melted into one of pure bliss as he chewed. “You sure can cook, Miss Foster.”
The spoon waggled ominously. “Don’t try to get around me with that slow-talking sugar.”
Asa wiped his mouth on his napkin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Harrumph!”
She was going to whap him, Elizabeth just knew it. He was going to provoke Millicent with his teasing ways, and then she was going to whap him. If she did, he’d be nursing a headache for days. Elizabeth stabbed her fork into the sweet potato, fragrant with butter and a touch of cinnamon. “You’re right, Millicent. I’ve got to start eating more now that I have a husband.”
She put a bite of the potato in her mouth. It sat like a lump of dirt. She didn’t know how she’d force it down her throat without choking.
Millicent eyed her suspiciously. Elizabeth managed a weak smile. It didn’t appear to reassure the other woman, but she seemed to be relaxing. Just when Elizabeth was sure Millicent was going to let it go, Asa spoke up.
“She’s not right.”
If she had a shotgun, she would have loaded his backside with buckshot. She watched fatalistically as the light of battle reentered Millicent’s blue eyes.
“You saying I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
Behind Millicent’s back, Elizabeth made frantic motions for Asa to shut up. He ignored them. “I’m saying that if you’re trying to convince my wife I’m hankering for something else, then you and I have a problem.”
The restaurant grew quiet as the patrons realized a standoff was in the making.
Millicent put her hands on her hips. “I notice your problem is with my convincing her, not the truth of it.”
Elizabeth groaned. Millicent loved to argue.
“What truth would that be?” Asa asked, calm as could be.
“Men don’t like skinny women.” Millicent said with complete authority. “They get tired of being poked and jabbed by all them bones.”
“That so?” Asa asked, interested.
“Gotta say she’s right about that,” the Sheriff hollered. That got hoots and hollers as it was the worst kept secret in town that the sheriff was sweet on Millicent.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Jed Stuart countered. “I like ‘em trim and sleek like soft pussy cats.”
Elizabeth wanted to sink down in her seat as the argument of men’s preferences grew and swelled with little regard for the decency of the topic. Millicent and Asa paid it no mind. Their gazes were locked onto each other, their discussion private unto themselves.
“That’s so,” Millicent retorted, echoing Asa’s response with all the force of her considerable personality.
Elizabeth knew how it felt to come up against that force. It always left her feeling like she’d survived a hurricane. Asa didn’t even look like he’d been ruffled by a breeze.
“Well, I hate to argue.” He took another bite of his chicken. “But a man has a right to his tastes.”
“And yours are?” Millicent had the persistence of a fly. Elizabeth wished that, just once, Millicent wouldn’t focus on something pertaining to her life. She really didn’t want to know Asa’s preferences. Hearing he liked plump blondes would be torture.
“I’m happy with my wife.”
He said that as if he meant it. No smile. No prevarication. Just a straightforward statement of fact. Some of the tension left Elizabeth’s throat. She took another sip of water and discovered she could swallow the bite of sweet potato.
Millicent’s toe tapped hard on the floor for about ten beats before it stopped. Some of the stiffness left her back. Her spoon dipped to a less menacing position. “Darned if I don’t believe you.”
“Glad to hear that, ‘cause I’d sure hate this fine meal to go cold while we debated the point.”
Millicent laughed. “You’re a character, Mr. MacIntyre.”
He nodded once. “I’ll be taking that as a compliment.”
Millicent nodded back. “You do that.” Her attention swung back to Elizabeth. “You got yourself a good man. Don’t mess it up with any of your nonsense.” She frowned at the sweet potato. Elizabeth wished she’d managed to choke down another bite.
“You eat every bit of that,” Millicent ordered. “If I have anymore than the skin to slop the hogs, I’m going to take it personally. You’ll be nine-years-old all over again.”
“I’ll eat it all,” Elizabeth promised. Somehow, she’d manage.
Millicent paused and sniffed the air. “Gosh, darn it, Bessie! Did you take that corn pone out of the oven?”
“I meant to,” Bessie wailed in a clear indicator she hadn’t.
With a curse word that singed, Millicent forged a path to the kitchen.
“What happened when you were nine?” Asa asked.
Trust him to latch onto that. “My father and I were having a discussion.”
“How did Millicent get involved?”
“It started here.”
“Uh-huh.” He pointed to her plate with his fork. “You going to eat that potato?”
“I suppose.”
“So the argument with your father started here?”
She sighed, recognizing he wasn’t going to give it up. She poked the potato with her fork. “Father thought I was too puny. He thought, if I ate more, I’d be able to handle ranch work better.”
Without guilt, Asa made free with her potato. “Your father overlook he was dealing with a little girl?”
“He had hopes the problem could be overcome.”
On an “Uh-huh”, another bite disappeared. “Your Pa have a tendency to drink?”
Her fingers clenched in her lap. “No. He just believed he could…change things.”
“Can’t see the logic in trying to change a sweet little girl into a strapping boy.”
“I wasn’t sweet.”
He paused in his theft of a third bite. The fork hung, fully loaded about six inches above the potato. “Now there, darlin’, I’ve got to disagree.” She knew she was going to regret it, but she met his gaze anyway.
“You melt as sweet as honey on a man’s tongue. Gotta believe you started that way to end that way.”
She tried to protest, but all that came out was a strangled, “Asa.”
The man at the next table seemed to lean their way. She’d be mortified if she thought he’d heard what Asa had said.
Her husband was blithely unconcerned. “On this, you’ll have to take my word.”
“I’ll take your word, not because I agree, but because this conversation is highly improper.”
The glint in his eyes was devilish. “Guess that means I’ll have to prove my point in private.”
If he did, she’d probably strangle on the embarrassment.
“What happened when Millicent stepped in?” he asked as he made the last of her potato disappear.
She didn’t know whether to be offended or relieved that he’d eaten her dinner, so she answered his question instead. “She interrupted my father and told him she’d get me to eat the meal before the morning was out.”
“Did she?”
“Many times over.”
His right eyebrow kicked up. “She wasn’t satisfied with once?”
“I kept getting sick.”
“And she kept making you eat?” That was the first time she’d heard a man growl.
Elizabeth remembered the day vividly. The pain from the beating her father had given her almost crippling her when combined with the nausea inspired by the smell of meatloaf. Millicent’s desperate pleadings. Her father’s angry discovery that she’d gotten sick. His fury. Millicent’s intervention. “She didn’t have any choice.”
“Appears to me she had a hell of a lot of choices.” He slammed the napkin on the table.
She caught his hand with hers before he could slip away. “You weren’t there. I’m very grateful to her.”
He stared at her, first, like she was nuts, then in confusion and, finally understanding dawned. Of what, she didn’t want to know. Just as long as he didn’t go after Millicent with that look in his eye, she was happy.
“I love Millicent very much.”
“I can see that.” The look he shot her was a warning. “Someday, you’re going to tell me the whole of it.”
“Thank you.”
“Uh-huh.” He went back to his chicken and dumplings. “You’re racking up quite a debt for someday.”
She wasn’t worried. Someday was a long way off. A clever person could postpone someday forever. “I’m a procrastinator.”
“A what?”
“I like to put things off.”
“I guess I’ll learn to live with it.”
“I’ll try to keep it to a minimum.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He looked to the right. “Here comes Millicent. If you want her to think you ate that potato, you’d best wipe your mouth with that napkin and pretend you enjoyed it.”
As she did as he instructed, the truth hit her like a steam train, running over her defenses with blinding speed. He’d eaten the potato so Millicent wouldn’t lecture her. Just like he’d deflected her criticism. Just like he’d thrown his body over hers when the bullets had started flying. Just like he’d put Aaron on notice when his thoughtless comment had hurt.
I take care of my own.
She’d heard him say it many times. But she’d dismissed his comment as dog-in-the-manger male bragging, but—
She pulled the napkin away from her mouth. It seemed to actually matter to him that she was happy. And he was doing his best to discover what those things were and that she didn’t run into any discord. Hot on the heels of understanding came dismay. She didn’t know what to do with someone like him.
“You ate,” Millicent observed happily as she came abreast of the table.
“You added just the right amount of cinnamon,” Elizabeth commented, not willing to lie outright.
“You remember now, it’s just a pinch.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Something wrong with your meal?” Millicent turned and asked Asa. “For a man who was talking seconds, you sure are picking.”
“Nope.” He took a hearty bite. “I just got sidetracked talking to my wife.”
“You really like her that much?” She said it as if it amazed her that anything could distract a man from her chicken and dumplings.
She was a fool but Elizabeth found herself holding her breath for the answer.
“Yes. I really like her.”
Millicent snorted. “Newlyweds! Not a lick of sense. Think they can live on love alone.” She motioned to a table by the window. “Just like those two over there.”
Asa obligingly looked. “You mean the table with the big man in buckskins and that lady all dressed in pink?”
“That’s the one.”
“That’s Cougar McKinnely, isn’t it?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t recognize the young lady.”
“That prissy bit of nonsense is Emily Carmichael. Ever since she found out Cougar’s got more money than God’s got little green apples, she’s been set on hooking him.”
“He doesn’t seem unhappy with the arrangement,” Asa added.
Millicent snorted in disgust. “He’s too straightforward a man to see he’s being taken for a ride.” Her scowl deepened as her thumb jerked over her shoulder in Emily’s direction. “She bats her eyes and coos, and he mistakes it for real interest.”
“You don’t think she’s serious?” Elizabeth bit her lip. She didn’t know Cougar very well. He was a half-breed, and her father hadn’t had anything good to say about him, but Cougar was the adopted son of Doc. Whenever she’d had to go to Doc for care of her wounds, Cougar had always been kind. He’d brought her soup once when her mouth had been too sore from a calf’s kick to chew. He’d stood in the pouring rain and said he knew how it felt and handed her the crock. He’d stayed. Talked. She’d been too astonished by his kindness to take precautions. Her father had come upon them, accused her of leading McKinnely on. Cougar had stood up for her. Her father had taken his fists to him despite the fact he’d been not much more than a boy.
Doc had had a lot to say about that. The sheriff had come out. In the end, her father had apologized to Doc and Cougar to stay out of jail, but he hadn’t meant it. After that, she’d done her best to stay away from Cougar McKinnely. But she hadn’t forgotten his kindness.
She looked at the couple. “I hope you’re wrong, Millicent. Cougar deserves a woman who loves him.”
She ignored the sharp glance Asa sent her way. His jealousy over Aaron was enough to handle. She wasn’t adding Cougar McKinnely to his list.
“So do I, honey,” Millicent said on a sigh, “but I’m not. You just watch those two. Cougar’s smitten, all right. He’s fallen for the girl, but she wants nothing to do with him. She practically cringes when he touches her.”
Just then, Cougar reached with a lover’s tenderness and a gentleman’s regard for protocol and laid his hand atop Emily’s. She immediately found a pretext to slip her hand free.
“That girl sure wants no part of that man,” Asa observed.
He was so positive. Elizabeth wondered with guilt how Asa felt in the wake of all the times she’d pulled back from him? Was she equally obvious?
“It’s as plain as the nose on your face,” Millicent agreed, “but Cougar can’t tell the difference between maidenly modesty and repugnance.” She shook her head. “I never thought I’d say this, but I wish that man had more of a penchant for saloon girls.”
Both Asa’s eyebrows flew up. Elizabeth couldn’t restrain a gasp.
Millicent had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, it’s the truth! Tough as he is, mean as he had to be before Doc and Dorothy got hold of him, that boy’s been holding out for true love.”
Elizabeth looked across the room and studied Cougar more closely. Cougar McKinnely a romantic? Just then, he threw back his head and laughed at something Emily said. His long dark hair swung across his shoulders, giving his profile an exotic cast. For the life of her, she couldn’t see it. He exuded danger, confidence and life, yes, but…romance?
“I hate to start the disagreements before I get my hands on that pie,” Asa interjected, “but that’s one man I wouldn’t want to come up against in a fight. That being the case, I’m having real trouble believing he’s the sort to read poetry and sigh over true love.”
Elizabeth bit back a smile at Asa’s accurate summation. “He is awfully big and mean-looking,” she agreed.
Still, she couldn’t forget the image of a nineteen-year-old riding six miles in the rain to bring her soup.
“I didn’t say he’s a sissy boy,” Millicent growled, setting her hands on her hips. “I said he believes in true love. It’s all Doc and Dorothy’s fault, making out that there are others who believe in such a thing just because they found it.”
“Maybe he’ll figure it out for himself,” Elizabeth said hopefully.
Millicent snorted. “No way in hell that girl’s going to let onto the truth until she’s got a wedding ring on her finger.”
Asa was strangely silent. Was he thinking on the similarities between his situation and Cougar’s? Guilt and dismay washed over her in waves. She owed him better.
“Here, now, don’t eat that!” Millicent ordered, sweeping the half-eaten plate from under Asa’s nose. “It’s cold.”
“Still tastes good,” he argued around a mouthful of food.
“No one sits down to a cold meal at my table.”
“It was hot when it got here,” he pointed out.
Millicent bristled and Elizabeth wanted to laugh. She’d been on the receiving end of Asa’s humor enough to empathize.
“And I kept you gabbing, so now it’s cold,” Millicent countered his argument. “I’ll bring you a fresh plate. When you clean that, I’ll bring your pie.”
Asa groaned as she strode away. “Now I’m in a pickle.”
“Why?” Elizabeth asked, knowing full well how his plan had backfired.
“You heard her.” He shot a despondent glance at the pie on the counter. “I’ve got to clean the plate to get the pie. I might have managed to finish that plate and still had room for pie, but if she loads me down again, I’ll never make it.”
No sooner had he finished the sentence than Millicent came back with a plate groaning with the load it bore. She placed it in front of Asa with a flourish. On a “Dig in”, she was off to clean another table.
His sigh must have originated in his boot heels, it was so deep and drawn out. “I really could go for some more pie,” he said as he picked up his fork with resigned determination.
“You ate an entire pie at lunch.” Elizabeth pointed out reasonably.
A hound dog couldn’t look more mournful than Asa. “That was hours ago.”
She picked up her fork. “I suppose, in the interest of protecting your belly from another lecture, I could pitch in.”
Her offer didn’t inspire any great declarations of gratitude. “Pardon me, darlin’, but the two bites you’d manage wouldn’t make much of a dent.”
“For your information, Mr. MacIntyre, I’ve developed quite a hunger during our discussion.” She motioned with her fork for him to push the plate more to the center of the table. “You may consider yourself lucky if you get more than a bite or two.”
He pushed the plate over, but his expression was anything but confident. “Anything you say.”
A lesser woman might have taken offense. She, however, felt like laughing in the face of his hang dog expression. He’d find out for himself soon enough. She hadn’t felt this hungry in years.
She took the first bite and let it melt on her tongue. Her stomach rumbled loudly, demanding more. Her fork clashed with Asa’s. She emerged victorious. As she triumphantly brought the choice piece of chicken to her mouth, she saw the realization that she was serious dawn on his face. From then on, it was a contest made more complicated by the laughter that kept getting in the way. By the time they got to the pie, it was an effort to keep the food on the fork for the shaking of their hands and bodies.
As Elizabeth took the last bite of pie, she looked across the table. Asa was doing his level best to keep a straight face while chewing the bit of apple he’d swiped off her plate. He was failing miserably in that and his attempt to appear innocent. He caught her stare and had the gall to wink. In a heartbeat, the truth broke upon her. Hell had surely frozen over because Elizabeth Coyote MacIntyre was falling in love for the first time in her life.