Josie answered honestly. “I want it to be successful. I want to step outside the house and see herds of cattle grazing off in the distance. Healthy, fat cattle. And then I want to sell them for great amounts of money, and I want to put that money back into the ranch. I want it to grow and I want it to prosper. I don’t want my parents’ deaths here to have been in vain.” She stopped abruptly, clenching her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms, and hoping that Mr. Thomas didn’t see her as a weak little girl with dreams that were nigh on impossible.
It shouldn’t matter to her one bit, but for some reason she wanted Mr. Thomas to respect her.
“I believe we have the same goal, Mrs. Gresham.” He took a step closer to her. “And I don’t see why we couldn’t work together to achieve that wonderful dream we both have.”
Marriage. He wants marriage, a voice seemed to scream in the back of Josie‘s mind. But it was hard to hear when he stood this close to her, so close she thought she could almost feel his warmth.
She struggled to find her voice, swallowing hard. “I don’t know you,” she finally said. “How do I know that what you say is true? And that you simply didn’t come here to pull some kind of trick on us to get this property for yourself?”
“You don’t. It’s called faith. And I’m asking you to have faith in me.” That slow easy smile slid across his face again. “And besides, if I were plotting some sort of scheme, I certainly wouldn’t have picked this ranch with barely a third of the number of cattle you had at this time last year.”
Josie refused to acknowledge the point in his statement. Nor would she return that disarming smile, the one that would certainly appear in her dreams tonight. Instead, she held fast to the impassive look on her face and said, “Well, we’ll see about all of that.”
Mr. Thomas took a slight step back, letting his arms extend a little to each side, and Josie felt almost as if she could breathe again with some distance between them. “Does that mean you would like me to stay?” he asked.
She gave a short laugh. “Oh no, Mr. Thomas. If it were entirely up to me you would’ve been gone on your horse last night. But George seems to think you might be useful, and since half of this ranch belongs to him and we could certainly use the help, I suppose I’ll agree to let you stay. Provided you don’t pester me to marry you.”
He smiled that time, a real joyful smile. “All right, Mrs. Gresham. I believe we might have a deal. I’ll stay here and prove to you how much I want this place to succeed for all of us, you’ll refrain from tossing water in my face or trying to get me kicked by your milk cow. And I’ll keep the proposals of marriage to a minimum.”
“Noproposals of marriage,” Josie corrected him.
“I’ll do my best, but I make no promises.”
Josie shook her head at his teasing manner. But as she left the barn to see to her chores, she wondered if hewasteasing. Surely he couldn’t have been serious.
Could he?
Chapter Five
It was early the nextmorning when Arlen made his way from the barn toward the fenced enclosure that ran the length of the pasture to the west of the house. Cummings had told him that this was where they held the cattle awaiting the drive to the railhead in Grand Platte. Apparently the winter had done a number on some of the fencing, and the work had been put off in favor of things more immediately needed. But now that autumn was almost upon them, the fixing needed to happen, and it needed to happen quickly.
As he rode around the house, Arlen wondered where Mrs. Gresham had gotten off to so early. When he’d entered the kitchen for breakfast this morning, she had already left for the day. He had found himself scooping up some cold eggs she must’ve made hours before and wishing she had been there for him to tease. He grinned as he remembered how she hadn’t moved an inch yesterday when he’d stepped closer to her. Mrs. Gresham certainly wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he’d come out here, but she sure was hard to forget when he fell asleep at night.
As he rode the length of the fence, he found he needn’t have wondered where she’d gotten off to. Because there she was, kneeling over a broken rail in the fencing just past a large pine tree that had obscured both her and her horse from view earlier. A small stack of new fence rails lay piled under the tree.
“Good morning, Mrs. Gresham,” he said with a raise of his hat as he and General drew even with her.
