The Bachelor Tax

Gabe watched as her jaw clenched, and her skin lost its color. Then his gaze traveled her length and he bit at his tongue, almost ashamed of the scornful words he’d aimed in her direction.

He’d be willing to bet his best filly that she was shaking in her boots. But, damn! He had to give her credit. She was toe-to-toe with him and not backing down one little bit.

“I’m not sure a marriage proposal is retractable,” she told him primly. “Not if you plan on dodging the new tax on bachelors, anyway.”

“Make up your mind, sweetheart. Either you want to be my cook or my wife. Which is it?” And then he waited for a long moment as she hesitated. It’d be just like the woman to call his bluff, and if there was anything Gabe Tanner didn’t need, it was a female nagging at his heels every blessed day of his life.

At least not one that had any rights over him.

“I’d just as soon try the job as a cook, if it’s all the same to you,” she said.

He dragged his gaze from her mouth and his thoughts from the memory of how sweet those lips had tasted. His mind registered the words she had just spoken.

A cook. He’d just hired himself a cook, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how that piece of business had come to pass.

“You got your duds with you?” He peered into the buggy, then stepped back. “Must be you’re plannin’ on walkin’ back and forth to town every day. Or else buyin’ a rig to travel in. You sure don’t want to live on a ranch with a bunch of rowdy cowhands and a bachelor.”

Rosemary shook her head. “I don’t believe I could be here in time to cook breakfast, Mr. Tanner. And as for living in your house, I wouldn’t mind. You could always join your men wherever they sleep, I suppose.”

“I hardly think so, ma’am.” He tilted his head, nodding at the long, low building at the far side of the barn. “That there’s the bunkhouse.” He turned, aiming one long finger at the dwelling he’d helped to construct. “That’s my house. I sleep in it, every night of my life.”

Her gaze followed the line his pointing finger indicated, and he watched as her throat moved, grinning as he recognized the swallow she could not conceal. “I suppose the house is large enough for me to find a space for my belongings, Mr. Tanner.

“I have several pieces of furniture that I would need to store, sir. Perhaps there might be an extra room I could use.” She swung her head to face him and her eyes were bleak, the brilliant blue fading, as if sadness had drawn a shade, making her gaze colorless and dull.

“Furniture?”

She nodded. “Some things of my mother’s. Things I can’t…well, just family…” She halted, her hands moving helplessly against her dress.

Suddenly the baiting ceased to be enjoyable, and he spoke soberly. “There are a couple of empty rooms, Rosemary.” How he’d managed to acquire a cook was a moot question. Now that he had, the particulars of the situation were the issue to be faced.

“You know you’ll be the talk of the town, don’t you?”

Her shrug was eloquent. “I haven’t found employment there. I shouldn’t think it would be anyone’s business. Besides—” she looked up at him and hesitated. “I need a place to stay.”

The woman was in desperate straits. He released the breath he’d been holding, and the sound was audible between them. “We’ll see how it works. Maybe something else will turn up that’ll suit you better.”

She scanned the house, her eyes measuring the height and breadth of the structure, and he turned, wondering what she saw that held her interest. It was just a house, with four bedrooms up and four rooms down, one a big, bright kitchen, another the formal parlor his father had ceased using once his mother left. The dining room was useless these days—never had been much call for formal dining in this house. And then there was the study where his father had done his drinking. Gabe seldom went past the wide doorway. A ghost lived there, and a passing glance could almost persuade him that the grizzled man who had sired him still sat behind that desk some nights.

“You want to go inside?” he asked abruptly, the vision in his mind making his voice harsh.

“No, that isn’t necessary. I’ll just have Mr. Comstock take me back to town so I can arrange to have my things brought here.”

“All right. He won’t be long.”

As if he had a vested interest in her well-being, Bates Comstock went about the moving of Rosemary Gibson. Driving a heavily laden wagon up to the parsonage the next day, he brought his team of dray horses to a halt and ordered the two sturdy young men to work.

Rosemary stood on the porch, watching their approach and motioned to her meager belongings. A satchel and three boxes comprised her personal effects, and they were quickly added to the furniture that filled the rear of the big wagon.

“Hop on up here, ma’am,” Bates said cheerfully, offering her his hand. “We’ll have you all settled right quick.”

The two young men climbed into the back of the wagon and Rosemary caught her breath. This was really happening. Of all the circumstances in which she might have thought to find herself, this was the least likely.

And yet it had come to pass, more rapidly than she’d have thought possible.

From the house, Reverend Worth watched. Then, stepping onto the porch he raised his hand. “Don’t forget what I told you, Miss Gibson.”

Rosemary nodded, deciding that no answer was required.

“What’d he tell you, ma’am?” Bates asked.

Rosemary tugged at the strings of her bonnet and fussed with her gloves. “I suspect you already know, sir.” She looked straight ahead as the wagon made its way down the main street of Edgewood. “He’s going to pray for my safety.”

Bates slapped the reins across the broad backs of his team. “Nuthin’ wrong with that, I guess. But I’ll tell you one thing, ma’am. Gabe Tanner won’t let any harm come to you out there on his place.”

“Well, that’s encouraging,” she said, turning her head aside as Dex Sawyer stepped onto the broad sidewalk from the swinging doors of the Golden Slipper Saloon.

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of his uplifted hand, and her chin tilted higher.

“I think the new piano player’s taken a shine to you, Miss Gibson,” Bates said cheerfully.

“I doubt that.”

Bates shrugged and grinned. “You’re a goodlookin’ woman. I’m just surprised you haven’t been snatched up before now. ’Course, with your daddy needin’ you in the parsonage, some of the men were kinda put off. Facin’ the preacher and askin’ for his daughter’s hand might’a seemed a bit much to most young fellas.”

“I didn’t notice any of them lining up on the porch,” Rosemary said, holding her handkerchief to her nose and mouth as the dust billowed up from the horse’s hooves.

“We sure do need a good rain,” Bates announced, pulling his own kerchief in place from around his neck. The wind had picked up, and a swirling dust devil scampered across the road in front of them, dying out as it reached the grassy verge.

“The sky was red this morning,” Rosemary said. “That usually means wet weather ahead.”

Bates nodded and urged his team into a faster gait.

The furniture was duly deposited in an empty upstairs room, and the two husky young men breathed deeply as they made their last trip into the house with Rosemary’s boxes and satchel.

“Where will I be staying?” she asked Tanner, who had supervised the move from the top of the stairs.

“Either in the dining room or one of the other rooms up here, ma’am,” he announced, his words not giving a hint as to his druthers.

“The dining room?” Rosemary stepped to the wide doorway that led into that dimly lit area, the furniture shrouded as if mourning were the order of the day.

“There is no door for privacy,” she said quietly, her eyes seeking him as he watched her from the head of the stairs.

“Your choice, ma’am. There are two other rooms up here, and both of ’em have doors…and locks.”

The two young men dropped her belongings to the floor and looked at each other, one with a sly grin that bespoke his thoughts.

It was too much. To start out with such an attitude was unforgivable. “How about the study, Mr. Tanner?”