Chapter Four
What in the world am I thinking, asking another random person to come and join me on the ranch? When am I going to stop collecting strays?
Adam was disappointed in himself. When he had taken Mason in, he had told himself it would be the last time.
Of course, bringing Ruth home had paid off in spades, since she was the ranch foreman now, but the boy had been a lot of trouble.
Adam didn’t regret giving Mason a home, but he did have to concede to himself that he had made a lot of extra work and worry for himself by doing it.
And now he was doing it again.
He knew next to nothing about Rachel Foster. He hadn’t even realized that Nathan Foster had a stepdaughter. But that wasn’t all he had said about her. This woman works for me, he had announced.
That was no way for a man to speak about his stepdaughter. And besides, Rachel was clearly old enough to leave home. Maybe all she needed was an opportunity.
And then there was the fact that Mason needed a female role model—someone other than Ruth, someone softer and more feminine. Someone to teach him manners and gentleness. He wasn’t getting that anywhere at all.
Adam looked at Rachel.
She was beautiful. He didn’t want to think that had anything to do with his decision to offer her a place to stay, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that her green eyes held him captivated.
Her skin was pale in a way that made her look fearful, maybe even a little unhealthy, but there was color in her cheeks.
She was staring at her stepfather, eyes narrowed. Fierce.
He couldn’t help but admire her. She was a fighter.
“Do you want to come and work for me?” he asked her. It was the last time he would ask. Whether she said yes or no, he would accept her answer.
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was soft and reedy at first, but she cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes,” she said, not taking her eyes off of her stepfather. “I’m going to work on Mr. Summers’ ranch.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Nathan Foster said, low and dark, glowering at her. “Just leaving like this, with no warning? No preparation? You don’t even know this man. We’re your family.”
Rachel shook her head. “You don’t want me here anyway,” she said.
Nathan Foster reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. “I won’t let you,” he snapped, yanking her close to him.
Rachel let out a soft cry of pain and flinched, and something inside Adam snapped. He was usually in control of his temper, but when it flared, it was like a wildfire, hot and ferocious and out of control. “That’s enough.” His voice came out a snarl.
He grabbed Nathan’s shoulder. He’d have liked to give the man a good shove, but to do so while he had a grip on Rachel would have risked hurting her.
He managed to restrain himself. “You take your hand off her right now,” he ordered.
“If you want your daughter to have a job, you control yourself and let her go.”
“What do you mean by coming to my house and meddling in my affairs like this?” Nathan demanded.
Adam didn’t waver. He met the other man’s eyes and knew he had already won. There was fear there. Nathan Foster was nothing but a coward puffing up his chest to make himself feel strong. “Let her go.”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure it would work. But then Nathan let out a hiss and dropped Rachel’s arm. “Take her,” he grumbled. “You’ll wish you hadn’t soon enough. She’s nothing but trouble, I warn you.”
Adam ignored the man and turned to Rachel. She was rubbing her wrist. “Are you all right, miss?”
She nodded. “I’m all right.” Her voice shook a little, but she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Can we go now?”
He nodded. “I only have the one horse,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t bring a cart.”
“That’s all right.” She strode over to her stepfather and held out her hand. “The case, please?”
He looked as if he’d have liked nothing better than to open it up and empty the contents into the dirt. He curled his upper lip at her, but he must have realized he had no grounds to keep her things from her. After a moment, he shoved it at her.
She took it. “Thank you for everything,” she said quietly, a bite in her tone that let Adam know how far from sincere she was. She walked over to Chestnut and turned back to face Adam.
Adam hesitated. “Thank you, Mr. Foster,” he said, figuring that he would do well to keep things as cordial as possible given that the man’s other daughter was going to be the schoolteacher.
Mr. Foster snorted. “This isn’t over,” he promised, glaring at Adam. He pointed a finger in Adam’s face and turned away, crossing the yard toward his house.
So much for keeping things cordial.
Adam went down to the fence and began to unwind Chestnut’s ties. “You’re comfortable on horseback?” he asked Rachel.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be fine, if you think we can manage the suitcase.”
“I’ll handle that.” He eyed her for a moment, then shrugged and lifted her up onto Chestnut’s back.
She gasped as her feet left the ground, but she accepted his help willingly enough and didn’t even flinch when he climbed up behind her.
He wrapped an arm loosely around her waist to keep her secure and took the reins in that hand.
He needed the other one to hold onto her suitcase.
With a click of his tongue to Chestnut, they were on their way.
Rachel didn’t speak until they had made their way to the end of the street and turned the corner. “You don’t really have to take me to your house,” she said. “I don’t know what you meant by offering that, but…I don’t want you to feel like you have to do it.”
“I really do need someone to help me around the house,” Adam said.
“And you just thought you would get me to come be your maid without knowing anything about me?” Her tone turned sharp. She turned her head to look at him, shifting slightly on Chestnut’s back.
It was like having swallowed a chunk of ice. “I thought you wanted to come,” he said. “I thought you wanted to get away from there. I did ask you if you wanted to come.”
“I know you did,” she said. “But you didn’t ask me if I wanted to work for you. What do you have in mind? Someone to clean your house? Someone you can order around so that you don’t have to do anything for yourself?”
Where was this coming from? “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to,” he said. “We can go back right now.”
“Of course I don’t want to go back,” she said. “You saw how he was. You saw how he treated me.” A shudder passed through her body. “I think you know I was leaving today whether you showed up or not.”
“And where were you planning to go?” He had a suspicion as to what the answer would be. He had seen the way she’d torn out of the house as if her socks were on fire.
She didn’t answer. She stared straight ahead. Her fingers combed their way into Chestnut’s mane.
“You didn’t have a plan,” he surmised. “You were just running. Isn’t that right? You had no destination in mind. Nowhere you were going to go.”
“I have a little money,” she said. “My friend Edith was able to give me some of her savings. I can rent a room in town tonight.”
“You know that stepfather of yours will come looking for you if you stay anywhere near here,” he told her.
How could that sneer not haunt her? Adam thought he would be hard pressed to forget it.
That face had been so cruel. The curl of the man’s lip, his narrowed eyes, the way his voice had lowered when he had issued threats…
even Adam felt uneasy knowing that Nathan Foster might consider him an enemy.
It was a dark cloud hanging over him. And he was bigger than Nathan Foster. Rachel was half the man’s size.
“I won’t stay here,” she said. “I’ll do a little work around town until I have some money, and then I’ll get on a train and go somewhere else.”
“Well, if you’re going to be working anyway, you might as well come and work for me,” he reasoned. “You might as well go somewhere that’s going to be safe for you. I can offer you that. He won’t be able to bother you while you’re under my care.”
“I don’t need to be under anybody’s care,” she snapped.
“Just…stop the horse and let me down. I’ll go my own way.
I’ve had enough of taking the orders of men who think they know better than I do what my life ought to look like and don’t want to give me the chance to make anything of myself.
I do have aspirations of my own, and they don’t include cleaning your house. ”
Adam considered for a moment.
Should he do what she was asking? Let her go her own way right here and now, let her figure things out on her own? I would never be able to stop worrying about her.
No, he couldn’t do it. He urged Chestnut into a trot instead.
“What are you doing?” Rachel demanded. “I told you to let me get off!”
“I’m taking you back to my ranch, as we agreed,” he said evenly.
“I don’t want to go to your ranch!”
“Nobody can make you stay against your will,” he told her. “If we get there and you decide to walk away, I won’t stop you. But I want you to at least consider it.”
She groaned. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! Why is it more important what you want than what I want when it’s my life we’re talking about? Why does what you want matter at all?”
“You’re on my horse,” he pointed out. “I’m riding back to my ranch on my horse.
Whether you stay with me when we get there is up to you, but as long as we’re on Chestnut here, it’s up to me.
I’m afraid it’s that simple.” He softened his voice.
“I’m not trying to push you around, Rachel, I’m trying to help you. ”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“I know you didn’t.” He adjusted his grip on the suitcase. “Maybe you should have. But I’m trying to help anyway. I’m trying to give you a way to make the money you say you need. If you want to take a train out of here, you’ll need work. I can give you that. I’ll pay you very well.”
“And why would you do that? Why are you so set on me coming?” she asked. “You can find a maid in town. It won’t be hard. Get someone else.”
But she wasn’t as defensive as she had been. There was curiosity in her voice now, and Adam knew that was his way in.
“I have a child,” he said. “Or rather…he isn’t my child, but he lives with me on the ranch.
A ranch hand. And he could use a female role model in his life.
It can’t just be a maid I find in town. I chose you because you seem to know your own mind.
Because you have a strength I don’t see all that often.
You’re the kind of example I’d like Mason to see. ”
She was quiet for a moment.
His heart was beating harder than usual, he was sure of it.
Why was it so important to him that she said yes to this?
After all, he hardly knew her. But he was sure that if he didn’t convince her to accept his help, it would haunt him.
He wouldn’t be able to forget this moment, or to stop wishing that he had somehow hit upon the right words to say.
Rachel sighed. “I suppose I do have to make money somehow,” she murmured. “And I might as well be somewhere Nathan isn’t going to try to ambush me. After the way you stood up to him today, I think he’s too frightened to confront you again. He always was a coward.”
“I got that feeling from him,” Adam agreed. “He seems the type to try to push people around as long as he’s confident that he’s bigger and stronger than they are.”
“That’s exactly who he is,” Rachel murmured, her voice distant and soft. She didn’t seem to be there with him at all for a moment.
Then she came back to herself. “So I don’t think he’ll bother me while I’m with you,” she finished. “And if you really can promise to pay me well, and if you mean what you say about allowing me to leave whenever I’m ready to do so…”
“I mean it,” he assured her.
Chestnut rounded a corner.
Adam had been so distracted by their conversation that he hadn’t been keeping track of his horse. They were moving too fast. As they turned, Rachel lost her balance and slid to one side. Crying out, she started to fall.
Adam moved instinctively. He released the suitcase and it fell to the ground. He threw his free arm around her waist and caught her, pulling her upright onto the horse and holding her firm against him. With the other hand, he pulled back on the reins and brought Chestnut to a halt.
For a moment, they were silent. Adam’s heart pounded against his ribs. That could have killed her. I lost focus for a moment…she could have died.
Rachel cleared her throat. “The suitcase.”
It took him a moment, but he unwound his arm from her waist and jumped down. He picked up the case. As he turned around, he saw that Rachel was sliding off of Chestnut’s back as well.
She held out her hand for the case.
Was this it? Had she agreed to stay with him only because she had been sure he wouldn’t let her go? Had it been a ploy to make him trust that she wouldn’t run? Now that she was off the horse and out of his arms, she was free to take the suitcase and go back to town.
Well, if that’s what she wants, I can’t stop her. He walked back over to the horse and leaned against his flank, watching her. Waiting to see what would happen.
Rachel brushed some dust off her suitcase and then looked up at him. “It seems all right,” she said. “I’m going to need you to carry it again, if you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind. Does that mean you’re still coming with me?” He could hardly believe it.
“That was the agreement,” she said. “I come with you, I work for you, you pay me. Right?”
“Right,” he said, shaking his head. Never in his life had he met anyone who had kept him guessing as much as this woman already had in the short time he had known her.
“Can you help me back up?” she asked.
He nodded and lifted her back onto the horse. She went easily this time, with no resistance or protest. He climbed up behind her, took the suitcase, and nudged Chestnut forward once more.
But this time, he kept an arm circled about her waist as they rode, just in case.