Chapter 2 #3
“You’ll feel better when you drink this.” Amelia emptied the coffeepot into a cup and set it before him. “While you do, I’ll make some fresh.”
A little later, he had downed two more cups of strong coffee and was sober enough to make sense. And Pa was right. Gil smelled bad. “Go wash up somewhere and put on clean clothes. You aren’t fit to be around decent company.”
Scowling and muttering, Gil stalked from the house. She didn’t know where he’d wash, nor did she care. So long as he didn’t have another bottle stashed somewhere. With that in mind, she watched him cross to the barn, remove his boots, and step into the water trough, fully dressed.
“Now to get my things inside.”
Upstairs, she poked her head into the five bedrooms. Zach called this a small house? She found one room empty except for a bed, a table at the bedside, and a large wardrobe. It would do just fine. She’d make Poppy a nest on the floor so she wouldn’t worry about her falling out of bed.
Back downstairs, she went outside. The two girls played on a swing.
“Kat, can you help me with my trunk?”
Moving with deliberate slowness to let Amelia know how put out she was about this, Kat put Poppy down and sauntered over. Poppy followed on her heels.
“How long you staying?” Not an ounce of welcome in that question.
Well, never mind. The initial shock had worn off, and Amelia’s resolve had grown. She’d prove her worth while she was here.
They struggled up the stairs with the trunk and into the bedroom before she answered. “I don’t rightly know.”
They traipsed back downstairs and out to the wagon. The crate was easier to take up to the room.
As they descended this time, Mr. Taggerty waited at the bottom of the stairs. “Have you come to help?”
His face puckered up with trying to sort out this change in his household.
She smiled. “Yes, I’m here to help. Is that all right?”
He thought about it for a minute, then smiled. “I like that.”
Amelia turned to Kat. “How about you? Do you find that acceptable?”
Kat shrugged. “Don’t matter to me. I aim to be doing some cowboyin’.”
“Great. Then I have just the job for you.”
Kat brightened. “Yeah? Sounds good.”
“You can help me take care of the horses.” Zach left them hitched to the wagon, no doubt expecting Gil to tend them.
“That ain’t cowboyin’. That’s chorin’.”
Amelia managed to get the girl to the door as they talked. “I spent days traveling here, and in that time, I saw lots of cowboys. Never saw one who would neglect a horse.”
“How many did you see? Were they tall and handsome?” The girl sighed dramatically.
Amelia scooped Poppy into her arms while they led the animals to the barn. She told Kat of some cowboys she’d crossed paths with as she traveled.
“Met the strangest ones on the stagecoach. Why, at one of the rest stations, a man lived in a shack not much bigger than your outhouse. And he was as friendly as a starving bear. You could smell him a fair way downwind.” She wrinkled her nose to illustrate.
“But the stagecoach driver said there wasn’t a man around who treated the horses any better. ”
Kat huffed. “Are you saying I stink?”
Amelia stopped and gawked at the girl. “How do you take that from what I said?” And then she saw how Kat struggled to hold back her mirth. She gave the girl a playful push. “You’re teasing.”
They laughed together as they took care of the horses, then returned to the house.
Pa stood at the window watching for them. At least he hadn’t wandered away.
Gil emerged from the bunkhouse, his hair slicked back, his whiskers brushed into place, and his clothes swapped for clean, albeit wrinkled ones. He didn’t return to the house but sat on the bunkhouse steps, his head in his hands.
That left Amelia to prepare supper. She had hoped she’d get the opportunity sooner rather than later and set to it as Pa sat at the kitchen table.
Kat and Poppy played a finger game. The little one was so easygoing, so accepting of strangers. It made life easier for all of them, but Amelia longed to give the sweet baby a secure home and surround her with people who loved her.
In her dreams, this was to be that place.
The letters she believed Zach had written promised it.
Her throat clogged with tears she would not shed, and she turned her attention to the kitchen, opening cupboards and looking into bins.
Zach had described this room. She paused and smiled as she recalled what he had said.
Ma always made the kitchen a place where we gathered as a family. Some of my fondest memories are sitting around the table, laughing and talking. Things changed after she passed.
The before picture was everything she dreamed of, planned for, and expected she’d have a hand in recreating.
Except for one detail. Zach was not the one who wrote her, nor was he the slightest bit welcoming.
Who had written those letters? Was that man waiting for her somewhere? But unless Zach had a twin brother with a life the same as Zach’s, the same name, the same everything…
It was almost laughable. Except for the predicament it left her in.
Was there a way she could sort this out and keep a roof over her head, for Poppy’s sake?