Chapter Six
Days passed in a blurof ranch work, easy conversation, and Mitchell’s desperate attempts to keep his mind off Miss Cummings. But the latter wasn’t easy, considering she was often outside, feeding the remaining chickens, playing with the dogs, sweeping the porch, and entertaining her cousins. Mitchell was almost grateful for the frequent presence of her sister, who watched him with suspicion. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve to land on her bad side, but the younger Miss Cummings didn’t much care for him at all.
It was just as well, though. Between her and learning that Arlen used to work as a sheriff, Mitchell kept his brief conversations with the redhaired Miss Cummings to a minimum. Yet that didn’t stop her from entering his dreams at night or waltzing into the corners of his consciousness when he had a moment or two to himself during the day.
The only reason he could figure that she wasn’t already married up was that obnoxious sense of curiosity she possessed. Once he understood it wasn’t malevolent, Mitchell found it charming. He’d caught her devouring a newspaper from Omaha late one afternoon, soaking up the words as if she couldn’t get enough. Another time, he found her interrogating a hapless fellow who’d simply stopped at the ranch for directions. By the time the man left, Miss Cummings knew his business, his place of birth, the names of every member of his family, and the general geography of St. Louis where the man had grown up. All of this she relayed with glee to the family at supper.
Those suppers had come to be Mitchell’s favorite part of the day. He rarely spoke, instead preferring to enmesh himself in the fabric of this family. Miss Cummings’s chatter, the men’s discussion of business, Mrs. Thomas’s daughters’ thoughts on whether the baby would be a boy or a girl, the impatient way the dogs—who were now allowed back into the dining room—would lay under the table, hoping for a scrap to fall.
The familiarity of it was comforting and something he’d craved for so long without realizing what he’d been missing. It was like the ranch had put back a piece of his soul that he’d lost long ago, back when his parents died, back before he’d found himself in a world of trouble in Denver, back before he’d made the decision between freedom and loyalty.
That last thought came to him as he sat back in his chair after finishing another meal of beef—butchered from the ranch’s own meager stock and carefully parceled out to last—and old potatoes. He closed his eyes for a second as the words ran through his mind again.
Freedom or loyalty.
He’d been on the move for so many months, scratching out an existence that barely kept him alive, that he hadn’t had much time to think on the decision he’d made late last fall. Guilt pinched at the corners of his mind from time to time, but he’d pushed it away.
But now that he had time to think, out here with the blue sky and the promise of water on the way, he knew he’d done the right thing. It had felt wrong at the time—almost selfish—betraying Clarkson like that to save his own hide. Even though the man had crossed a line that Mitchell would never have followed him over. But it had been the right choice to make—theonlychoice.
What Clarkson would never know was that Mitchell had saved his life.
“Mr. King?” A sweet, soft voice said his name, drawing him back into the present.
Miss Cummings’s face was drawn up in concern as the others around her engaged in conversation. “Are you all right?”
The past was the past, and that’s where it ought to stay. Thinking on it would do no good for the future. Mitchell nodded.
Next to him, Dot, the Thomases’ younger daughter stood up. “Hannah and I have something to say.”
The table quieted, and all eyes went to the little girl, who grinned as if she was holding back a secret bigger than Christmas. She looked to Mrs. Thomas, who nodded at her.
“We’re the reason there weren’t eggs for breakfast this morning. Or yesterday.” Dot’s round face looked sheepish, but that smile didn’t leave her face.
“This had better be good,” Arlen said. “My stomach missed those eggs.”
“Oh, it is, Daddy! Just wait. Hannah and I, we went into town with Belle and Lara, and we sold the eggs to Miss Hollie at the diner. She asked us how much we wanted for them, and we told her a dollar.” Dot looked at Hannah, who extracted a few coins from her dress pocket and set them on the table.
“It’s for the water machine,” Hannah said in her quiet voice.
“The last dollar,” Miss Cummings said from across the table, excitement bursting from her in what was possibly the most beautiful smile Mitchell had ever seen.
As the table erupted into joyful conversation, Miss Cummings turned that radiant smile onto Mitchell. “You were right,” she said.
The salvation of the ranch was hardly a done deal, but Mitchell would take that sweet, happy look she gave him any time. His hand itched to reach across the table and cover hers, but he kept it firmly planted in his lap. Instead, he reveled in the glow in her eyes, the smile she shared only with him, and the animated chatter around them.
