Hill Country Courtship (Brides of Simpson Creek Book 8) Page 10

  He could feel his jaw tighten and his lips flatten into a hard line, and despised the way he could hear the chill in his voice when he spoke. Yet he could not stop himself. “Evidently the prosperous burghers from Germany left the Old World with more gold than the Scots, Miss Maude. I’m afraid you’ll find no extra money here for the extravagance of constructing a separate house to inhabit once a week. Some of the servants say their prayers and sing a hymn or two in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. You and Juana could join them, if you’re so inclined.” He felt his lip curl as he said it and heard the derision in his voice. He made a conscious effort to soften his tone for his next words. “I’m sorry, Miss Harkey, but you knew how far this ranch was from town when you signed on to work here.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly with downcast eyes. “I don’t mean to sound as if I’m eager to shirk my duties.”

  “No one accused you of trying to get out of work, Miss Maude,” he said, a little more sharply than he should have. But he felt so awful at dimming her joy, after she’d done so much to bring peace to this once-contentious house. “Perhaps in time, something can be worked out, especially after winter is over. Mother and I wouldn’t want to chance you getting stuck in town due to bad weather rolling in—one of your infamous ‘northers’ for example.”

  “I see,” Maude murmured, looking wan and diminished now. Why would the idea of dressing up and listening to a parson drone on for an hour or more bring her such joy? It had never done so for him or his mother. The church had never been there to help when they’d so desperately needed it, back in Scotland, so he’d never seen the point of attending church in the New World, either. A parson was just another greedy fellow with his hand outstretched, Jonas thought, to dip into pockets already bare. What little money his father had possessed had been used to buy their passage to America, and their first property in Missouri. The sale of that had purchased Five Mile Hill Ranch, which had been a bargain because of its notorious previous owner.

  Clearly, though, Maude got something more from church attendance than Jonas ever had. Something that lit her up all the way through when she thought of it. Suddenly he would have given anything to see that bright gladness on her face again.

  “Perhaps next Sunday, if the mild weather continues...”

  “We’ll see,” she murmured as if she knew how little such a vague promise was worth. “There’s no guarantee about the weather, this time of year, but at least the cold never lingers long here.”

  He hoped that was true of her mood, as well. He’d discovered he much preferred a happy Maude.

  * * *

  The little gathering in the kitchen on Sunday morning was halfway through a dirge-like rendering of a hymn when Juana and Maude joined them. Hector and three cowboys were there, in addition to the housekeeper, but that was the total attendance. Maude had seen more cowhands around the ranch than what she saw here, but possibly some of them were not church attenders or had duties that kept them from coming.

  It could hardly be called “making a joyful noise to the Lord,” she thought dispiritedly, but Lord, You promised to be in the midst of “where two or three are gathered in Your name.”

  “Welcome, Maude and Juana,” Senora Morales greeted them. “We’re glad you could join us. At this point we usually read from the Scriptures. Would you care to do the honors?” she asked, offering a Bible with a tattered leather cover to Maude. “We’ve been reading from Genesis.”

  “I’d be happy to, senora,” she said, accepting the book.

  Maude was surprised that the first book in the Bible was as far as they’d gotten. The MacLarens had been at Five Mile Hill Ranch for over a month. If the Sunday meetings had been ongoing throughout, then their progress through Genesis must have been very slow, indeed. And no wonder, she thought, when she realized that the passage was a chapter with nothing more than who had begotten whom among the old patriarchs of Israel. She struggled through it, trying to read with animation and expression despite the dry nature of the text.

  “Thank you, Maude. That will have to conclude our service, for I’ve got to get this pot on the boil for dinner,” Senora Morales announced, indicating a kettle on the stove. “And I’m sure you all have duties to go back to.” Her remark and pointed look seemed especially aimed at Maude and Juana.

  That was it? There was no prayer, no concluding words of any kind? Maude had to smother a squeak of dismay. Even more than before, she longed for the chance to attend church in town, where Sunday services were truly a blessing, joined together with devout friends and led by a wonderful minister. While she’d been reading the chapter in the Scriptures, Maude had imagined Reverend Gil’s fine, resonant voice bringing life to it. Even the driest of passages gained energy and meaning when he read them.

  “Have a nice Sunday, Senora Benavides,” Hector murmured, and moved forward toward the door.

  Ought she to offer to say a concluding prayer? Maude wondered. But no, Senora Morales might well think it presumptuous of her to put herself forward in that way since she was a newcomer, or might take it as an implied reproach. The woman was doing the best she could. It would have been easy, in the absence of a formal church in the vicinity, not to do any kind of worship service at all.

  In any case, the housekeeper had already turned to the stove and was laboring to lug the pot of peeled potatoes in water to the waiting hook over the fire. And Hector was shuffling out of the kitchen, after his words to Juana, along with the other ranch hands.

  “May I help you, Senora Morales?” Juana offered, coming forward. “That looks heavy.”

  “I could have used the help earlier, when I was peeling all those potatoes by myself, while you two dallied with the baby,” Senora Morales snapped. It was clear that despite all this time of complaining at the lack of help, she felt a little threatened by the arrival of these two young women, and the popularity of little Hannah. Finally reaching the fireplace, her skirt whirled as she hefted the pot onto the hook that would suspend it over the fire.

  One moment all was well; the next, her skirt had flicked into the fireplace. A tongue of flame licked up the heavy serge fabric with a hiss.

  Senora Morales screamed and ran toward the door as the flame crackled and widened its swift march up to her waist.

  Instinctively, Maude dashed after her, knowing she had to stop the woman and smother the growing fire or she would die. Running only fanned the flames.

  She was instantly transported back in time, when one of her father’s patients, a rancher’s wife who lived east of Simpson Creek, had caught her skirt on fire in the hearth, too. She had been hideously burned over most of her body, for she had also run, feeding the fire that damaged her so severely. Maude knew her father would not have taken her along if he’d had any idea how extensive the burn would be. She still remembered the odor of charred flesh and the dreadful sight of the blackened, peeling skin.

  There had been little her father could do for the woman except leave a bottle of laudanum with the family to ease her pain. He had returned every day or so to change the dressing, but the burns were too deep and extensive to easily heal. The woman had died of infection after a painful fortnight of agony.

  “Senora Morales, stop!” Maude cried, but the housekeeper, crazed with fear and pain, paid no heed. Maude kept running, shouting, “Hector, bring me the pot of water!”

  She was a lot younger, and many pounds lighter, than the housekeeper, and she caught up before Senora Morales escaped the kitchen. With a desperate lunge, she tackled the housekeeper; bringing both of them crashing heavily to the floor. Then she whipped off her shawl and began to beat at the flames.

  “Hector!” she cried without looking up from what she was doing, but she heard the foreman’s heavy booted feet nearing them, as well as the water splashing from the pot he carried.

  “I have the pot, senorita!”


  “Pour it on her!” The water would not have had time to heat to a dangerous temperature in the brief time it had been over the fire. It would douse any remaining sparks on the woman’s skirt that sought enough air to reignite and cool the scalded flesh.

  With a mighty heave he upended the pot. Peeled potatoes cascaded over the woman along with the water. Juana reached them then, and whipped off her own shawl, wrapping it around the shuddering, drenched woman.

  “You saved my life!” Senora Morales sobbed. “Ay yi yi, the pain! I hurt, I hurt!”

  Had she saved the housekeeper? Maude wondered. Or would the woman linger in agony for days, only to lose her fight in the end as the ranch wife had done?

  Hardly breathing in anticipation of what she would see, Maude lifted the blackened edges of the skirt.

  It was bad, though fortunately not quite as bad as she had feared. Blisters were already forming like pale whitish-gray islands over the reddened skin. Reddened—not blackened. That was good. Unaware that she was sobbing herself, Maude wet Juana’s shawl in the what water was left in the bottom of the pot and laid it gently over the blisters, careful not to press too hard.

  “Blisters are God’s own perfect bandage,” Maude could hear her father saying. “Try to leave them intact, if possible.”

  “Juana!” she called. “I need you to fetch me clean cloth for bandaging, and those pots of aloe from Mrs. MacLaren’s plants—all of them. And hurry!”

  But Juana only stared at her. “Maude, she has so many different plants—I’m afraid I don’t know one from the other,” Juana confessed, dark eyes huge in her frantic, pale face.

  “They’re the ones with the big fleshy spears of leaves,” Maude told her, but Juana’s face remained uncomprehending.

  “I know this plant,” Hector said. “And where to find clean linen for bandages. Come on, senora, I will help you,” he said as he pulled Juana to her feet from where she had been kneeling next to Maude and the housekeeper. Together they ran from the kitchen.

  They had been gone only a moment when Jonas appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “What’s the meaning of all this caterwauling? And what’s that awful stench?” he demanded. Then his gaze found his housekeeper lying on her back on the floor, with Maude holding the wet shawl over the charred remains of Senora Morales’s skirt. “What on earth happened?”

  There was silence in the kitchen. Even Senora Morales’s moans of pain and fear had ceased as she saw the master of the house staring down at her with that fierce expression on his face. Maude realized it was going to be left up to her to explain.

  She did so, her voice shaking as she described the frightening event. “I’ve sent Juana and Hector to fetch your mother’s aloe plants—their liquid will provide some pain relief when I bandage the burns. But I think Dr. Walker should be sent for, too,” she added.

  He’d said their pockets weren’t deep—would he refuse to pay for the doctor to come?

  To her relief, Jonas replied immediately, “I’m sure you’re right, Miss Harkey.” His face was somber—it was clear he understood the seriousness of the situation. “I’ll send Hector.” Jonas said. Then he turned to a ranch hand standing close by. Though they had left at the end of the service, the men had apparently returned at the sound of the shouts. In the rush of events, Maude hadn’t noticed their presence until now. “Someone run out to the barn and get his horse saddled.”

  They heard a cry of outrage then, from upstairs, followed by the thudding of feet down the stairs toward them.

  Hector and Juana burst back into the kitchen, their arms loaded with pots of aloe plants as Maude had requested. They were closely pursued by a staggering, wild-eyed Coira MacLaren, who was yelling in some incomprehensible tongue—Gaelic?—and shaking a clenched fist.

  When she caught sight of her son, Coira switched to English. “Jonas, they’re stealing my plants! They burst into the greenhouse room and started carrying them off! Tell them they can’t have my plants!”

  Quickly, Jonas crossed to his mother and spoke to her in the same exotic-sounding rapid-fire speech. Then he instructed Hector that he was to ride for the doctor.

  “You and you,” Jonas said, selecting a couple of male servants standing at the back of the throng. “Help me carry Senora Morales upstairs to her bed. Maude, come with us, please, and help me get her settled.”

  It was nearly dark by the time Dr. Walker arrived. He immediately examined the housekeeper, and gave her laudanum for her pain. He praised Maude’s quick action and her use of aloe beneath the dressings.

  “I couldn’t have done better myself, considering what you had at hand. Oddly enough, raw potatoes are an old wives’ remedy for burns, so they likely helped somewhat, as well. I’ll stay the night, and see how this looks in the morning. Unless infection sets in, though, I think she will fully recover with nothing more than a few scars—”

  “Thank God,” Maude breathed.

  “Thank God you’re here to nurse her,” Dr. Walker replied with a smile. “It’s a mercy your father was a doctor, Miss Maude, and that he taught you what he could. Otherwise, I’d be forced to move her into town, and I shudder to think how hard that trip would be on her. You two ladies will have your hands full, between caring for her and Mrs. MacLaren, won’t you? I’ll have to come out frequently to check her. I’ll leave bandage material for you. Do you have enough aloe to keep dressing the wounds?”

  “Only enough for another dressing change or so,” Maude said. Senora Morales was a large woman, and the burns covered an extensive area. Maude had squeezed dry half of the aloe leaves already.

  “I’ll leave you some salve I have in my bag, then,” Dr. Walker said. “When that runs out, spread egg whites over the burns—also an old wives’ remedy. But the aloe plants are best—use them first.”

  “I’ll do my best, Dr. Walker,” Maude said, her mind already awhirl with how to handle her added responsibilities. Besides the cooking, there would be cleaning and laundry to do. She and Juana would really have their work cut out for them, now that they would have to tend both the housekeeper and Jonas’s mother, and keep the household fed. And they’d have to make nourishing broths for Senora Morales, who would be laid up for some time.

  She was aware of Jonas lingering nearby. He had come to hear what the doctor had to say about his housekeeper.

  “Don’t worry about the house servants,” he told Maude. “They can take their meals in the bunkhouse. One of my ranch hands has been a trail cook, and he’s used to cooking for the cowboys. He can just add more beans to the pot.”

  “Thank you,” Maude murmured, grateful for this practical solution. Now that the worst of the crisis had been handled, she felt exhausted.

  “It is I who should be thanking you, Miss Maude,” Jonas said, his eyes warm. “You’re a braw lass. I ken you handled the situation with skill and courage this morning. It’s fortunate you were here, or we’d have been preparing to bury Senora Morales, not planning how to cope without her for a time.”

  His praise, spoken in that rumbling brogue, made her suddenly feel she could handle anything.

  “We’ll manage. It won’t be forever,” she told him, keeping her head turned away and her tone businesslike. She was inwardly dismayed at how avidly she’d drunk in his praise. He was acknowledging a job well done, nothing more. She had to stop feasting on his approval! He was a man who saw no value in tender feelings, who scorned the idea of love. She must not let herself think his words meant he was softening in his outlook. He had praised her for being practical and brave—for being useful. That was how he saw her. The same way Dr. Walker saw her, and every other man she’d ever known. She was useful. She was practical. And she inspired not an iota of softer or more tender admiration in anyone.

  Especially not in Jonas MacLaren.

  Chapter Nine

  Thank You,
God, for seeing to it that I had the experience of helping Ella with the cooking when she opened up her café, Maude cast upward as a brief prayer three days later, making her way down the steps from Mrs. MacLaren’s room to the kitchen. If she’d had to take over the cooking for the ranch house before learning Ella’s cooking secrets, it would have been a disaster.

  Her mother had died before she could teach Maude how to cook, and the housekeeper her father had hired afterward had always shooed Maude out from underfoot when she hovered in the kitchen, hoping to learn. Later, in the boardinghouse, Mrs. Meyer would rarely accept help with the actual food preparation for the tenants.

  Yet from Ella Maude had learned how to make a variety of dishes, as well as mastering the speed and efficiency needed to get everything ready at approximately the same time. So far, Jonas, his mother and Senora Morales had all expressed approval of what she’d cooked. It had helped that Juana had stepped in to make the tortillas when needed, for the MacLarens had learned to like many of Senora Morales’s Mexican dishes. Maude’s first attempts at making tortillas had resulted in corn disks as heavy and tasteless as leather.

  Senora Morales was healing well and had no sign of infection, thanks be to God. The doctor had been out to check on her yesterday, and had pronounced himself satisfied with her progress, enough that he could stay away unless they sent for him to report a problem. He decreed the housekeeper should stay off her feet and out of the kitchen for another day or so, though, much to Senora Morales’s displeasure.

  Maude suspected the other woman was feeling insecure because Jonas had complimented Maude’s fried chicken so highly last night. Could it be that the housekeeper feared Maude wanted her job?