Chapter Five
There was a strange, tight feeling in Aidan’s stomach the entire journey back. Virginia City was growing so fast that the once-isolated ranch was no longer much of a drive. It came into view slowly, the windmill standing over it like a kind of beacon.
He automatically turned the horses onto the property, his mind racing. Miss Hampshire was small and soft-handed, and she wore reading glasses to look at a train platform. She was, near enough, exactly what he’d been dreading. He prayed he hadn’t made a horrible mistake.
He also prayed that the house would still be standing when he arrived home. It wasn’t that his brother’s children were bad necessarily; they were just running him ragged. If they burned the house down in his absence, it wouldn’t be intentional. This was of little consolation.
As they turned down the drive toward the large new house he’d moved into, Aidan cast a longing glance at the old cabin at the front of the property. It was dark and silent, with no screaming children, no pots banging. He sighed and pulled his eyes away.
“Is this the ranch, I take it?”
Aidan started a little, and tensed to cover it. He’d forgotten he had passengers in the back. The aunt had leaned forward and nearly shouted in his ear to be heard over the rattling.
“This is the Two Dog,” he confirmed without turning to look at her.
“Quite an extensive property,” she commented. “A bit dusty.”
“Summer,” he grunted by way of explanation. Please, Lord, don’t let them complain about every little thing about ranch living, Aidan added to the prayer list.
“I think it’s lovely,” Miss Hampshire said quietly. Her voice was so light that Aidan almost didn’t hear her over the wagon.
“Prettier in spring,” Aidan said.
“It’s so open out here,” Miss Hampshire continued. “I bet you can see some amazing sunsets.”
Aidan grunted again. “Don’t get much time for gawking at the sky on a working ranch.”
He’d misstepped somewhere and crushed some romantic notion of hers; she sat back and fell silent. He had little time to consider it. They had arrived at the big house.
Aidan pulled the horses up and set the brake.
“I’m home!” he hollered in the direction of the house and leaped down.
He planted his hands on his hips, waiting for the children to appear.
General chaos sounded from within the house, then something broke.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back for a moment.
Great first impression they’re making, he thought dryly.
“Ahem.” There was a pointed, almost aggressive throat-clearing from the direction of the wagon.
Aidan turned to find the ladies standing in the wagon, having shuffled past the luggage to the rear. He looked at them blankly. The aunt tilted her head sharply toward the ground.
“Oh,” he said, dropping his hands from his hips. He wasn’t used to the mannerisms required when around ladies.
He went to the rear of the wagon and let the latch loose so the back panel dropped, then offered his hand, palm down, so the aunt could use him for balance as she dropped lightly to the ground.
“Thank you, Mr. Rawlins,” she said archly.
“You’re welcome, Ma’am,” he replied just as pertly, unable to help himself.
“It’s ‘miss,’ not ‘ma’am,’” she corrected.
Aidan had no reply to that. He turned instead to Miss Hampshire, who was looking down at the ground dubiously. She was considerably shorter than her stately aunt and wouldn’t be able to hop down so easily.
“Here,” he said gruffly. He offered up both hands and gestured her forward.
She blinked at him, her eyes owl-like behind her glasses.
She put her hands in his, testing that he would take her weight, and lowered herself toward the ground, one leg extended.
Her stockinged calf came into view in the process.
Aidan glanced down, and when he looked back up at her, she was blushing furiously.
He put his eyes on a fence post and left them there.
It had been a long while since he’d had cause to mind where they went.
He sighed. The hour was getting away from them, and he wanted this day done with as little fuss as possible. Miss Hampshire lowered herself further and, in her haste, overbalanced. Aidan caught her by the arms and swung her to the ground.
On her feet, she didn’t come to his shoulder. He looked down at her, not having had the chance to examine her until now. She was small, and round, and soft. Something in her face was in the middle of becoming clear to him when he stopped looking at it.
She glanced down at the hand still fixed on her arm.
He let her go and stepped back, wiping the hand on his trousers without meaning to.
He cleared his throat and gestured at the wagon, and to his relief she seemed to understand it.
She moved out of the way, her hands folded tightly together at her waist.
They were all saved from further embarrassment by the noisy arrival of the children. They all tried to exit the front door at the same time and got stuck.
“Why are you always so pushy, Bella?” Danny demanded, drawing out the last syllable of her name into a whine.
“It’s not me, it’s Gary! Wait your turn!” she protested, putting her hand on her younger brother’s head and trying to use him as leverage to free herself.
“Why should I?” Gary shouted in reply.
Aidan put a hand to his eyes, then stomped up onto the wide porch, his footsteps rolling over the boards like thunder. Without regard for who they belonged to, he reached into the tumbleweed of children and grabbed an arm, a leg, anything, and pulled them apart.
They came loose all at once, tumbling onto the porch, and immediately began complaining about who did what. Out of patience, Aidan did something he seldom did: he raised his voice.
“Enough!” he boomed out across the ranch.
“Is this any way to greet our… guests?” he said, faltering slightly at the word.
“Running wild like a pack of coyote pups! You all ought to be ashamed.” He paused in his ranting, looking down at their dirty faces.
“Didn’t I tell you to get cleaned up before I came back? ”
There was a collective shuffling and staring down at the boards of the porch.
“Well?” Aidan demanded.
“Why should we?” Danny said. He peered around Aidan to the two women, who were still standing by the wagon. “Don’t see why we should fuss about them. They’re not our guests.”
Aidan took a deep breath. Dinner promised to be an even more trying affair than usual, and he suspected he would need all of his strength for it.
***
“This is a very… unusual flavor,” the elder Miss Hampshire said. “Is it, erm, typical for the region?” she asked. She held a spoon and slowly stirred the bowl of soup in front of her.
Aidan stared down the dinner table at her. “Couldn’t say. Made it myself.”
“Are you fond of cooking, then?” Miss Alexandra ventured. She was seated at the opposite end of the table. Unlike her aunt, she seemed determined to finish what she was given without complaint.
“No,” he answered without elaborating. He bent his head over his own bowl, shoveling in soup.
The children, arranged around the table, were pushing their spoons petulantly around their own bowls.
“I could show you how to make a proper stew, if you like,” Miss Alexandra offered. She looked at Aidan with a shy hopefulness that grated on his nerves.
“Why?” he asked plainly.
“I just thought—never mind,” she said, turning her attention back to her dinner.
“After dinner, I want you to help get the trunks upstairs,” Aidan instructed Danny.
“Do I have to?” he said. Aidan shot him a look, and Danny slumped grumpily in his chair. “They weigh a ton!” he muttered.
“Ah,” Miss Alexandra said, wincing slightly. “That would be my fault.”
“I hope you know there isn’t much call for a dozen frilly petticoats and frocks out here,” Aidan told her.
She leveled a surprisingly even look at him. “I’m quite aware,” she said. “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve brought two dozen.”
Aidan stared at her, unsure whether she was making a jest at his expense or not. The children glanced between the two, the silence stretching.
“They’re books,” Miss Alexandra clarified. “We didn’t anticipate there being much in the way of a lending library out here.”
“Books?” Danny scoffed. He turned a pleading look on Aidan, as if to say, You can’t possibly expect me to haul this silly woman’s books up the stairs.
Aidan was inclined to agree with the boy, but he’d had enough cheek from everyone for the evening. He merely sighed and continued eating. What a young lady would need a trunkful of books for was beyond him.
She hadn’t taken offense over the petticoats. She’d come back at him and then let it go, which was not at all what he’d braced for.
He glanced up again and found Miss Alexandra still watching him, her face thoughtful, as if she were the one with misgivings. He scowled and hunched deeper over his soup, which was forming a strange oily layer on top. Long after he had broken her gaze, he could still see her large green eyes.