Hill Country Cattleman

She waited till later, after the house had grown quiet again, to go get the glass of water she’d wanted. In the meantime, she entertained herself by wondering what had happened on the trail drive to change Raleigh Masterson “for the better,” as Nick had said. Perhaps she’d ask him about that, if they got a chance to talk again.

Whatever it was, it hadn’t affected Masterson’s ability to know a pretty woman when he saw one, she thought, smiling in the dark.

Later, her thirst quenched, she mentally planned a letter to Gerald. She’d tell him all about their journey, and the exotic flora and fauna she’d seen, and the beautiful blue roan stallion the cowboy had ridden. She’d write nothing at all about the cowboy himself, of course. There was no point in making Gerald fear he had a rival for her affections, after all. Raleigh Masterson would merely be the model for her book’s hero, and what a hero he would make! He would fairly light up the pages of her manuscript.

It wasn’t Gerald who appeared in her dreams that night, though. It was Raleigh Masterson.

* * *

Violet first felt a tentative touch on her cheek, so light a moth’s wing might have made it. She started to brush it away, thinking a moth might well have landed on her in the night, but before she could, she felt a more insistent poke, like that made by a small child’s finger. A sticky finger, at that. She caught the scent of strawberries.

“Mornin’, An’ Vi’let,” a childish voice said by her ear.

Violet opened a tentative eye to see little Nick staring at her, his face only inches from hers. She’d fallen asleep with her arm hanging over the edge of the bed, and now her nephew stood right by her, watching her curiously.

Sunlight streamed through the east-facing window, little hindered by the sheer muslin curtains, illuminating the jam smeared on both of the child’s cheeks. His brown hair was tousled.

“Good morning, little Nick,” she said, amused by the sight of him. “Already had breakfast, have you?”

He scowled. “Not lil’. Big boy,” he informed her.

Just then Milly bustled into the room. “So that’s where you’ve gotten, Nicky! I’m so sorry, Violet. I told Nicky he had to be quiet out in the kitchen because his aunt was sleeping, and when I went to get a cloth to wipe his face, he took that as a hint he was to come wake you.”

“It’s all right,” Violet assured her. “I normally don’t sleep past dawn.”

“You must have been tired after your journey,” Milly said, then chuckled. “The last time I went somewhere in a stagecoach, I thought my brains would rattle right out of my head.”

“An’ Vi’let ’wake!” crowed little Nick.

“Yes, she is, thanks to you,” agreed his mother. “Now come with me and let me wipe off your face and hands, Nicky. I declare, you have more jam on your face than you swallowed. Violet, come out to the kitchen for breakfast when you’re ready. No need to hurry.”

Violet smiled as she watched them go. She quite liked Milly, she’d decided. Her brother had chosen well. Such a romantic story, his coming to this part of Texas to meet the woman who had placed a newspaper advertisement for eligible bachelors, and losing his heart to her. To think she’d been running the ranch with only her sister and a few cowboys before that! She must have had considerable spirit to have coped with it all. The very day Nick had arrived in Simpson Creek, Edward told her, the ranch had suffered a savage Indian attack. It was just as exciting as the novel she planned to write.

Little Nick was appealing, too, she decided. He had his father’s smile and adventurousness, but his dark eyes were shaped just like Milly’s. Hearing him call her “An’ Vi’let” had quite won her heart.

Hearing her brothers’ voices in the kitchen, she decided to get dressed rather than appear in her nightgown and wrapper. She picked the simplest dress she’d brought, a flower-sprigged cotton more suited to the heat of Texas than her traveling ensemble yesterday had been. She twisted her long blond hair into a knot at her nape.

“Good morning,” she wished them all when she entered the kitchen and seated herself at the long, rough-hewn table.

Nick looked up from the newspaper he’d been showing Edward. “Good morning, Violet. I hope you found your room comfortable?”

“Perfectly,” she replied. It was certainly different from her tower room at home with its flocked wallpaper and Aubusson carpet and the ancient, canopied bed. But she rather liked the guest room’s simple whitewashed walls, the bed with its brass-railed headboard, blue-ticking mattress and muslin sheets. By the bed, there was a braided-rag rug she suspected Milly had made herself. There were pegs on the wall for some of her dresses, a chiffonier for her other clothing. By the bed stood a small table with a lamp, a basin and ewer, and Milly had brought in a vase full of the same pretty Indian paintbrush flowers she had seen on the ride out from town.

“Thank you, Milly,” she murmured now as her sister-in-law placed a plateful of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast in front of her. “I trust you slept well, Edward? You and Nick didn’t stay up talking too late?” she inquired innocently.

“I slept very well,” he said.

Was there suspicion in his eyes? Had he heard that floorboard creak just before she’d reached her room?

She ate her breakfast in silence, listening to the two men talk about politics in England, but just as Edward finished verbally dissecting Disraeli, Violet heard the sound of hoofbeats approaching the house from the direction of the road. She lifted an edge of the curtains back just in time to see Raleigh Masterson dismounting from his blue roan. Violet felt her pulse quicken at the sight of the good-looking cowboy.

He held a rope attached to the halter of another horse, too, a striking black-and-white piebald perhaps a hand shorter than his mount. As she watched, he tied the rope to the hitching post by the house.

Milly glanced out the window, too. “Well, well...if it isn’t your driver from yesterday,” she murmured, eyeing Violet, who strove mightily to look as if the arrival of Masterson held not the least importance.

“Mornin’, everyone,” Raleigh said as he came through the door, but his eyes went directly to Violet.

“Good morning, Mr. Masterson,” she said. “I thought you’d be hard at work already, busting broncos,” she said lightly. “Isn’t that what they call horse breaking here in Texas?”

He grinned. “So you’ve been picking up the Western lingo,” he said. “No, at the moment we’ve no broncs to bust. But you’ll want a horse to ride, and after asking your brother ’bout an hour ago if it was all right—” he nodded at Nick “—I decided to bring over a horse from my own string I thought might be perfect for you while you’re here. Why don’t you come see her and tell me what you think?”

He’d brought the piebald mare for her.

Violet scrambled out of her seat with unladylike haste and fairly flew to the door and threw it open. Then she whirled and looked back at the smiling cowboy.

“You’re not joking with me, are you? Oh, Raleigh, she’s lovely!” Violet cried, forgetting she shouldn’t address him by his first name in front of Edward. She started to run outside, but realized she must not frighten a strange horse by dashing at it and squealing.

The mare looked up from the grass she had been nibbling, faced Violet with calm, kind eyes and nickered, her ears pricked toward her.

Violet approached slowly. “Oh, yes, you are lovely, aren’t you?” she crooned, reaching up a hand to stroke the horse’s velvety nose. The horse snuffled softly, seeming to savor her touch, then stamped her hoof.

“She likes sweets,” Raleigh said, following her outside. The others had come, too, but remained under the sheltered porch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, then unfolded it to reveal a couple of lumps of sugar.

Violet took them from him and offered them to the mare on her flattened palm. She smiled as the horse lipped the lumps delicately from her hand. “Oh, you like that, don’t you?” she said. She loved the horse’s bold coloring. The mare’s head was all black but for a narrow blaze, and her body was black, too, but with big white irregularly shaped patches scattered over her shoulders and flanks.

She stroked her neck, and the mare responded by arching it proudly.

“Are we friends now? Oh, Raleigh, I like her! What is she called? Where does she come from?”

“Lady. She was one of my string of horses on the trail drive, so I know she’s well-trained and reliable. I’d be right proud for you to borrow her while you’re here, Miss Violet.”

“Lady,” Violet repeated, and the horse bobbed her head as if to agree. “You know your name, don’t you? She looks like an Indian pony,” she said. “I’ve heard they favor piebald horses.”

“Yes, but we Texans use the Spanish term pinto, or paint, not piebald. You can use that saddle, there,” Nick said, pointing to a lady-size stock saddle that straddled the porch railing farther down.

Violet darted a look at Edward. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth a thin tight line.

“Ladies do not ride astride,” he proclaimed indignantly. “It’s not decent. She needs a sidesaddle.”

But Milly had come out behind him, and held out a divided skirt. “Violet can be perfectly respectable in this. It’s mine, but you can use it until I can make you one of your own, Violet.”

“You’re too kind,” Violet said, amazed at her sister-in-law’s generosity. “But I’m afraid I’d be keeping you from riding. That’s your saddle, isn’t it?”

Milly smiled. “I don’t get much chance to ride these days, what with Nicky, here,” she said, nodding at the boy, who was holding on to her skirt. “And keeping house and all. But if I do, I’m just as apt to hop on Ruby, out yonder—” she pointed at a red roan mare in the corral by the barn “—bareback.” She grinned at Edward. “Sorry if I’ve scandalized you, dear brother-in-law. Nick was a little surprised, too, until he saw how much fun it was to ride double, bareback.” She winked at Violet.

Violet couldn’t help grinning back. She saw that Nick was smiling as if at a fond memory, and she became newly aware of how much in love these two still were. It was the kind of love she yearned to experience herself. She and Gerald would have that kind of love someday, she promised herself.

Edward just shook his head and shrugged. “I suppose that would be all right, but don’t plan on bringing these hoydenish Texas ways home with you, Violet.” His lips curved upward, though, as he nodded toward Milly, which softened his words.