Wyoming Widow. Elizabeth Lane

Ranch. But she was already beginning to sense how easily a woman could fall prey to loneliness here. Maybe that was why there were no women in sight.

      Determined to be cheerful, she cut off a bite-sized piece of flapjack with her fork and thrust it into her mouth. The batter was crisp and airy, almost melting on her tongue.

      “Mmm!” she exclaimed, seizing on an excuse to break the silence. “Manna from heaven couldn’t taste any better than these flapjacks! Did Chang make them?”

      “Chang does all the cooking.”

      Morgan’s cool answer reminded Cassandra that she had offered her services in the kitchen. Clearly her help was not needed.

      Ignoring his rebuff, she turned toward the old man, who sat huddled in his wheelchair, toying with the food on his plate. His skin was gray tinged, his hollow cheeks etched with deep arroyos that flowed into the leaden tangle of his short beard. His flannel shirt was clean, his hair neatly trimmed and combed, but there was a wildness about Jacob Tolliver, a trace of the primitive that burned in his bloodshot yellow-green eyes.

      She scrutinized his pitted features, searching for some resemblance to his offspring. But she found none. Morgan could have passed for a full-blooded Shoshone, and there was no echo of Ryan’s golden beauty in either of the two men. Jacob Tolliver’s sons, she concluded, resembled their respective mothers.

      “The beef stew and biscuits Chang brought me last night were delicious, as well,” she said, pressing on. “Where on earth did you find such a treasure, Mr. Tolliver? Has he been with you a long time?”

      For a moment Jacob Tolliver paid her no heed. Then the old man’s hooded eyes flickered toward her, as if he’d finally realized she was speaking to him. He cleared his throat as if he were about to launch into a story. Then his knobby shoulders sagged wearily. “You can tell her,” he said to Morgan.

      Something flashed in Morgan’s black eyes. Was it hostility or only relief, perhaps even gratitude, that she’d steered their conversation onto safe ground?

      “My father stole Chang from the railroad,” he said.

      “Stole him?” Cassandra’s eyes widened.

      “Stole him as slick as whiskey.” Morgan sipped his coffee, taking his time. “Chang came over from Canton in the mid-sixties to work as a dynamiter on the Central Pacific. When a rock slide crushed his leg, he was assigned to the kitchen crew. Chang had never cooked a meal in his life, but he took to it as if he’d been born in a stewpot. Before long, his reputation got around, and visiting railway bosses were coming by just to sample his braised mutton and biscuits.”

      Morgan had settled back in his chair, cradling the coffee mug between his hands. Cassandra watched him, bemused by the discovery that this gruff, taciturn man possessed a hidden gift for words.

      “My father owned title to some land in Nevada he’d won in a poker game a few years earlier. The railroad wanted to buy the parcel, so he traveled west to see the land for himself and negotiate the sale. The track boss made the mistake of inviting him to dinner. You can guess the rest of the story.”

      Cassandra took what she hoped was a ladylike nibble of her scrambled eggs. The moist, frothy clumps were exquisitely seasoned—wild onion, she speculated, with a bit of sage and other flavorings so subtle she could not venture to name them. She took another bite, savoring the rich but delicate taste.

      “I would guess,” she said, “that your father, the wily old pirate, found Chang, took him aside and made him an offer too generous to refuse.”

      At her words, Morgan’s left eyebrow shot upward. The corners of his mouth twitched, threatening a smile—but only threatening. A real smile, she told herself, would probably crack that long granite face of his.

      “Wily old pirate, am I?” Jacob growled. “That’s a right brassy tongue you’ve got in that curly head of yours, Red.”

      “Well, aren’t you a wily old pirate?” Cassandra challenged him, her heart racing. “Besides, what makes you think I didn’t mean it as a compliment?”

      He scowled at her. Then his thin lips stretched across his teeth in a skull-like grimace. “Right smart one we got here, Morgan. That’s just what happened. But Chang was a mean negotiator himself. Before he’d agree to come, I had to promise we’d send for the wife and two boys he’d left back in China.”

      “Thomas and Johnny?” Cassandra took another forkful of scrambled eggs. “I met them last night when they brought in my bath. I must say, they have excellent manners.”

      “Good boys.” Jacob nodded his agreement. “Weren’t knee-high to a grasshopper when they come here, but their folks raised them fine. Thomas sees that I’m decently washed and dressed, and helps his father with the house. Johnny took to cowboyin’ from the first time he laid eyes on a horse. Little squirt can rope any critter that runs on four legs and a few that don’t.”

      Jacob Tolliver chuckled humorlessly at his own joke. Then his eyes went hard. “That’s enough talk about Chinamen. What I want to know, Red, is what brings a woman in your condition all the way to this godforsaken spot. Hell, it’s a dangerous trip alone, even for a man. You and that old mule could’ve got yourselves drowned in a creek or picked clean by wolves…” His gaze narrowed and sharpened. “Did you come all this way to find your baby’s pa? Maybe get the bounder to marry you? Is that it?”

      Cassandra laid her fork on her plate, her appetite suddenly gone. She felt the old man’s eyes drilling into her, felt the cold, silent threat in Morgan’s gaze.

      “I don’t like secrets in my house,” Jacob said. “Tell us, Red. Now.”