“Never saw that one around here before.”
“And I hope to never see him again.”
“Good looking, though.”
“Huh. I didn’t even notice. I was too angry to notice anything.” The lie rolled easily off her tongue. He was a good looking man. The sunlight through the store window had highlighted the red streaks in his brown hair. He obviously worked for a living, with the way his shirt stretched across his muscular chest. His eyes were a shade of green she’d never seen before. But that wasn’t important. She had no need for a man.
“Honey, you need to start paying attention to the male of the species. That little boy of yours needs a daddy.”
“Will and I are doing just fine. We don’t need a man. I have my brother. Michael spends time with Will. And Uncle Jesse takes him fishing all the time.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking in terms of fishin’. What you need is a man to warm your bed.”
“Mrs. Wells!” Rachel took a quick look at Will, but he was busy counting the licorice sticks in the jar on the counter.
“Mrs. Stevens, I have your wagon loaded.” Mr. Wells entered the store and walked behind the counter. He pulled out a candy stick and handed it to Will. “Here you go, son. I’ll put it on Big Bob’s bill.” He winked at Rachel.
“No, I’ll pay for it.” She fished in her drawstring purse and dug out a penny. She plunked it on the counter. “Come on, Will, let’s get moving before that storm blows in.”
Hand in hand, she and Will walked to the wagon parked in the front of Wells’ Mercantile. It had been loaded with a month’s worth of flour, salt, beans, coffee, sugar, spices, a round of cheese, and enough cloth for her dress and pants for Will. What made this load extra heavy were the tools Big Bob had her pick up. She climbed into the seat and tugged on her driving gloves as Will settled himself alongside her, sucking on his licorice stick.
With the wind kicking up, she retied her calico bonnet to make sure it was secure, and then snapped the reins to get the horses moving. They headed out of town, past the stores getting ready to close for the day. She shouldn’t have taken so long in the mercantile. The ten-mile drive to the ranch would take about two hours, putting her there early evening.
As was typical on her once-a-month trek into town, she’d left fresh baked bread and cold meat for the men’s supper, along with potato salad, cold beans, and plenty of pies. Mac would make the coffee and clean up afterward.
She kept her eye on the sky as they traveled. Oklahoma weather was tricky. Deep blue sky, lots of sunshine, and then within minutes a storm could blow in that uprooted trees and sent hail down on your head the size of a child’s ball. She tried to move the horses along, but with the heavy load they were towing, they could only go so fast.
“Ma, why were you and that man fighting?”
“We weren’t fighting, sweetie. He was just a grouchy person, that’s all. Don’t pay him any mind.” She glanced once more at the darkening sky.
“But I did run into him, and knocked him against the counter.”
“Oh, I’m not discounting what you did. I’m just saying he didn’t have to be so nasty about it.”
“I’ll bet he’s a cowboy.” Will bit off a piece of licorice.
“Probably.”
“I like cowboys.”
“You see plenty of them every day.”
“And I like all the cowboys at Big Bob’s ranch, too. That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.”
“Well, don’t get your heart set on it. You are going to college. Like Uncle Jesse and Uncle Michael. No cowboying for you.” Her one regret was getting married young and missing out on going to college. Her sister and brother went to college, and now Michael was a pharmacist and Ellie a schoolteacher like her Aunt Tori.
When she married Billy she’d expected to spend her life taking care of him, their home and children. College was the furthest thing from her mind. Then Billy died when Will was a mere baby and she found herself either having to live off her aunt and uncle, or finding a way to support her and her son. Since she’d always been a good cook, she was fortunate to find a job as a cook at Big Bob Richardson’s ranch, The Lazy Sunset.
“What about Uncle Hunter? He didn’t go to college.”
“That doesn’t matter. He works as a federal marshal. They don’t need college.”
“Then I’ll be a federal marshal like Uncle Hunter.”
Rachel had learned shortly after Will had begun to talk that it paid to pick her battles. Fighting about college when her son was only nine years old didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.
“Ma, are we gonna make it home before the storm?” His licorice stick finished, Will wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he looked anxiously at the sky.