“If you say so.”
Jane was aware when Morgan straightened, but what he did next she did not anticipate. He nudged aside the dark braid at her back with a fingertip and laid his mouth against curve of her neck. In contrast to the warmth of her skin, his lips felt cool. The kiss, if it could be correctly called that, lasted only a moment, just long enough for her to know that something was different, that something had changed.
“Thank you,” he said, stepping away. “I’ll let the others know you have breakfast for them before I wash up and head out.”
Jane stayed where she was, hands curled around the rim of the sink as much for balance as support. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Morgan open the door and step onto the porch. She saw him again, this time through the window as he took down the brass bell hanging on one of the posts and gave it a good swing. And that, she supposed, was letting the others know that breakfast was ready. By the time Morgan reentered the house, Jane was greasing the griddle for the next round of hotcakes. She waved him on without looking up, but in her mind’s eye she imagined his wily smile was firmly in place.
Jane had no difficulty filling her time between breakfast and the preparations for dinner in the afternoon. She had it from Jem Davis first and then from Max Salter that they would be riding out with Morgan and checking on the cattle in the Blue Valley, but there was no reason they shouldn’t be back in time for dinner. This last was said with considerable hopefulness, and Jem also managed to mention fritters.
Jane suspected that on any other morning they might all have ridden out, but on this particular morning Jessop and Jake were being left behind to do chores that would keep them close to the house. Over breakfast, Jane had listened to them fuss as brothers were apt to do about how they would split the work, and while she had the sense that their tasks were genuine, she occasionally intercepted darting looks in her direction that made her think she was also one of their responsibilities.
She doubted Morgan thought she intended to run off when his back was turned, especially since she couldn’t ride and did not know the first thing about harnessing an animal to the buckboard, so she supposed he was thinking of her safety or perhaps that she might not want to be alone. He never said as much to her, and she did not ask, preferring to believe he meant well and leave it at that.
While Jessop and Jake attended to their outside chores, Jane took a second tour of the house and began a list of things in need of doing, some of them sooner than others. The hardwood floors and furniture deserved more care than they had been given. She noted to check for linseed oil and turpentine so she could make her own furniture polish. The floors would benefit from a paste of beeswax and turpentine. She lifted the lid on the piano and ran her fingertips over the keys. In addition to needing tuning, the keys were in want of a good cleaning with alcohol. She regarded the smoked ceilings with some consternation until she remembered that a small piece of washing soda dissolved in water would remove the stains. The curtains at the windows required washing, and they did not slide easily on the rods. Hard soap applied to the rods would take care of that. It was also the remedy she would use on her creaking bedroom door and two of the drawers in the dish cupboard. The carpets needed a thorough sweeping, but the brooms she found were not in a condition that she deemed good enough for the task. The linens were clean, neatly folded, and stored properly, and the huckaback towels were perfectly serviceable if in need of bleaching.
Jane hesitated when she came to the wardrobe where Morgan still had most of his clothes. Would he see her examination as an intrusion or understand it as merely one of her duties? Last night, when she was adding her clothes to this wardrobe, she had given his belongings only a cursory glance, primarily to judge what she could move out of the way.
Putting aside her misgivings, Jane opened the doors wide. She removed Morgan’s shirts one at a time and looked them over for stains, tears, and general wear. She found two that needed mending, one at the elbow, and the other on the tail. A third shirt had a loose button. There was a blue chambray shirt that was so thin at the elbows that it would require patching if it were one of Morgan’s favorites. If he could bear to part with it, she was going to shred it for cleaning cloths. Grass stains in his trousers could be removed with alcohol; grease would require Ivory soap and cold water. She made another note to herself to look for the soap.
As Jane went through the house, she looked for the ladder that would allow her to reach the loft. She never found it, but she did find Jessop Davis hammering on the henhouse roof and asked him about it. He was happy to stop what he was doing and fetch it from the barn for her. When he reappeared, so did his brother. They carried the ladder into the house together and set it up so she could access the loft. Neither of them was comfortable letting her make the climb alone, so Jake went up first to lend her a hand when she reached the top. Jessop remained vigilant below, anticipating a fall.
The loft was more spacious than she anticipated when she had regarded it from below. It covered the same area as both of the bedrooms beneath it. There were two iron rail beds, a pair of matching dressers, and the clothes cupboard that Morgan had mentioned to her. She looked it over inside and out and agreed with his assessment that it would fit beside the window in their bedroom. How to lower it over the side of the loft was the problem.
Jake and Jessop shared none of her trepidation. Jake removed the two drawers at the bottom of the cupboard and carried them down while Jessop went back to the barn for block and tackle. One brother made a show of lassoing the cupboard while the other tied it off. Jane estimated it took them all of ten minutes to complete the task. They transported the cupboard to her bedroom, put it precisely where she wanted, and managed to do this without scratching the wood. Jane thought they had accomplished a marvel of engineering and told them so. She also promised them fritters. Her praise elicited identically lopsided, if slightly embarrassed, grins, and they kept their heads down as they shuffled out to get back to their chores. Jane believed they could not have cleared the porch before she heard one of them whoop and the other one laugh.
Smiling, shaking her head, Jane applied herself to moving Morgan’s clothes to the cupboard.
Morgan dismounted when he reached the summit of Mechling Hill. Jem and Max followed suit. They all stood beside their horses for a time, looking out over Blue Valley. One by one, they took up their canteens and drank.
“Looks like the grazing will be good this winter,” said Jem. “You were right about grubbing the land. Grass is more plentiful here than before. Came back thicker.” He sloshed water side-to-side in his mouth, and then he spit before he took another drink. “Never could tolerate the taste of the first swig from a canteen.”
“That’s because you’ve never been thirsty,” said Morgan.
Jem looked over at him. “Sure felt like that’s what I was.”
Morgan did not reply. He fixed his gaze on the fast-running stream that cut through the valley. On a clear summer day when the sun was starting to lower, the water reflected all of the sky. It put him in mind of a curling blue ribbon, the kind that a pretty woman might use to tie back her dark, bittersweet chocolate hair. This morning the stream had a silver cast. The white water sparkled as it rushed over stones.
The white-faced Herefords ignored the stream; most of them favored the pool of water in the basin. Here the water was more or less like the cattle it served—tranquil, wide, and shallow. Come winter, it would freeze. When that happened it would be up to him and his men to chop holes in the ice. If it froze solid, then they would drive the herd to water somewhere else.
Max Salter put his canteen away first. “I’m going to ride over to the next ridge and look around. I figure there’re about six, maybe seven strays. I’ll bring ‘em back.”
Morgan nodded. “You’ve got a good eye, Max.”
Max swung his wiry frame into the saddle and pulled his horse around. He clicked his tongue, and then he was moving on.
Jem watched him go. “Probably started to feel crowded what with the two of us standing beside him. He’s not one for company.”
“Ever think it was the company?”
“Me? It’s not me.”
Morgan shot him a pointed look.
“All right,” Jem said. “I suppose it could be me.”
“Damn straight. You haven’t shut up since we left the barn. Maybe you should say what’s on your mind instead of talking all around it. Or just talking.”
Jem shrugged.
