“Let’s get going, Colt,” Aunt Tillie said, nudging him in the ribs. “Woolgathering won’t get us to our new home.”
“Poor little Holly Jane must be frightened out there all by herself,” Grannie Rose said.
“She ain’t little, Grannie.” For some reason, Grannie thought Holly Jane was a child, even though he’d told her that she wasn’t, time and again. “She’s a spinster lady.”
“Is she?” Grannie frowned then brightened. “She ought to get on fine with Tillie, then.”
He hoped so. The care of three females, one not related, might be a challenge. He couldn’t imagine that the spinster would be grateful to see him, even though he was there to stand between her and the fool, feuding families.
The ride from town to the ranch was short. Only fifteen minutes by wagon...five, he figured, on horseback.
While the old ladies chatted, he watched the scenery pass and thought of William Munroe.
It had been nothing short of Providence, the pair of them meeting and becoming friends in so short a time.
The old man had been away from home on personal business having to do with his health, and was trying to get home but the locomotive of the train he had been traveling on had gone sour in a town called Presley Wells. Colt had been called to repair it. It had taken a few days and lodging was scarce. Colt and the old man shared a room and the stories of their lives.
All at once, the woods ended and the ranch came into view.
“Oh my, Colt,” Aunt Tillie said. “This is beautiful. Just what you dreamed of.”
It took some self-control not to leap from the bench and shout. In his mind he saw his horses running free with their tails and manes flying behind them.
“I’d like a ride on that carousel.” Grannie clapped her hands, her smile beaming.
“Really, Rose you know there’s no carousel way out here.”
A crow circled overhead, cawing.
“I may be losing my mind, Tillie, but you’ve lost your eyesight.”
“There is a carousel, Aunt Tillie.” Colt pointed to the spot where the faded machine sat a few hundred yards from the house.
The small plot of ground that held the carousel was Holly Jane’s land.
He wondered if she was bitter at the loss of the ranch. He hoped not. Could be, she felt freed of a burden.
At any rate, he hoped that the woman, likely getting past her prime and giving up on hope of a husband, would fit in well with Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie. As part of the land deal, he’d agreed to let Holly Jane live in the house and to watch over her.
They crossed the bridge over the pretty, clear flowing river called Neighborly Creek. In a few more minutes he drew the horses to a halt in front of the house.
“Welcome home, ladies,” Colt said, wondering if either of them had noticed the hitch in his voice.
The place welcomed him before he ever walked in the front door. The porch wrapped all the way around the house so that a body could stand on it facing east and see the sunrise in the morning then sit on a chair facing west and watch the sun go down behind the grove of trees at the western edge of the property.
Thanks, old man, Colt thought, and hoped William knew how sorry he was for the circumstances that made Colt the new owner.
He helped Grannie and Aunt Tillie from the wagon. With a hand under each of their arms he escorted them to their new front door.
Comparing this home to the one they had left behind was like comparing a fistful of spring flowers to a tumbleweed.
He reached for the doorknob.
“I believe it’s only right for us to knock,” Aunt Tillie said. “Miss Holly Jane might take a fright to see strangers walking into her house.”
He sincerely hoped he wasn’t inheriting a frail and skittish female. Heaven help him, he could almost see her now, a pinch-faced old biddy too shy to find a man...and looking dried-out as straw.
But he’d given his word to watch out for her, and he would. He’d care for her the same as he would Grannie Rose or Aunt Tillie.
He knocked on the door, not too loud, in case the poor woman was the nervous kind.
No answer. He knocked again, louder. With still no answer, he opened the door.
The three of them stepped inside.
“Oh, my word,” Aunt Tillie whispered. “It looks like a whirly wind passed through.”
“I do hope the poor little dear hasn’t been carried off by a Folsom,” Grannie said, her voice cracking in alarm.
“Or a Broadhower.” Aunt Tillie touched her throat with a delicate age-spotted hand.
He’d place his bet on the former lady of the house being none too pleased to give it up. Chances are she wasn’t waiting with a tea-and-scone welcome.
Colt led the way through the dining room, where dried-out posies lay scattered on the table, then to the kitchen, where it looked like a pastry explosion had occurred.
Small human footprints tracked through a dusting of flour on the floor, along with some four-legged prints that looked suspiciously piglike.
It couldn’t be, but how many times had he seen an oinker indoors? Only once, and that was yesterday.
He left the kitchen and made a right for the stairs with the old ladies close behind him. There was a heavy feeling in his gut that his charge might not be the retiring violet he had imagined.
She might be temptation dressed in an angel’s guise.
He opened the first closed door he came to.
Hell and damn. Curled smack in the middle of the bed was a miniature pig flicking its ear so that the pink bow tied in it looked like a waving hankie. Curled up about the pig was yesterday’s angel covered in the proof of her crime and not a whole lot else.
Flour dusted her cheeks and dappled her hair. One hand lay against the pillow, dainty fingers curled, the other under her pink cheek. Her lips puckered in her sleep, looking soft and moist.
“I told you she was the one, Colt.” Grannie Rose bent over the bed, peering at Miss Holly Jane. “If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t look so at home in your bed.”
Chapter Three
“The reason she looks at home is because she is.” Holly Jane heard a man’s voice say, the tone so rich it made her imagine melted caramel.
She snuggled more deeply into her dream, trying to savor the sound. It was a shame that she couldn’t see him, but he had popped into the dream without warning. His voice was a welcome change from the stubborn suitor she was trying to send on his way...and something burning in the oven at the kitchen of The Sweet Treat.
No wonder it was burning if she had been so careless as to return home without taking whatever was baking out of the oven. Just then the dream fog cleared from her brain. Nothing was burning. She was home in her bed.
She sighed deeply, snuggling into the pillow and wishing she might return to the dream. She would face the stubborn suitor and the ruined baked goods in order to hear that other manly voice one more time.
“Wake up, Mischief Muffin.”
Her eyes popped open before her vision cleared. Peering down at her was the blurred face of the man she had spun castle’s in the air about last night. The man whose voice had trespassed into her dream.
The man that Lulu had humiliated her in front of!
He gazed down at her with a grin and eyes bluer than any she had