Rancher's Woman Read online

  Rancher's Woman

  A Sweet Town Romance

  Sarah Christian

  Published by Salt of the Earth Press

  Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Christian

  More information.

  In the shadow of wild Deadwood, sits quiet Sweet Town. Established in the Dakota Gold Rush of the 1870s, Sweet Town is surrounded by gentle hills and fields of clover. It's a place where anyone can start over and redemption is never out of reach.

  Sweet Town romances tell the stories of the community as its members fall in love. These inspiring stories explore the power of charity, the nature of good and evil, and all the miracles that can happen when you open your heart.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  CHAPTER ONE

  Spring 1879, Dakota Territory

  Clanging belts and chains drove a motor competing against the steamy heated air, thick with the smell of lye soap, to make O’Cuinn’s Laundry an unpleasant place to be on an early spring afternoon. The sun was shining giving an illusion of warmth; truly warm days were months away. Esther adjusted the cloth kerchief she wore to keep her straight dark, brown hair back from her face, and steeled herself. As soon as the motor stopped she plunged her hands, skin wrinkled from being wet, into the hot suds and pulled the fabric out to go into the next vat to be rinsed.

  Her back ached, her arms ached, and her head ached, but it was good honest work, something that was hard to come by in the little town in Dakota Territory. She let out a sigh of relief and rubbed her lower back when the last item had been pegged onto a clothes line that ran through another room.

  The silence was such a profound contrast to the noise from the previous hours, she felt like she’d lost her hearing. She stuck a finger in one ear and wiggled it and made an experimental sound to test if she could hear her own voice.

  “Why did you do that?” a small voice, clearly heard, said from behind her. She whirled around.

  “Mary, you gave me a fright!” Esther turned back to adjust the wet items. “Does Emma know you’ve come over?”

  Mary lived across the road at an orphanage run by Emma and Neal Leonetti. When she had first come to them, she was nearly mute, but lately she’d become precocious and very inquisitive beyond her five years of age.

  She nodded. “Yes, but you didn’t say why you stuck your finger in your ear and made that funny noise?”

  Esther smiled at the girl while she pushed the empty wet laundry cart back to its spot by the washing machine. “My ears felt funny after all the noise stopped.”

  Mary nodded sagely. “What are you going to do now?”

  Esther noticed the child following as she continued on to her mending table. “I’m going to sew up tears in clothes, and darn socks. What are you going to do?” She sat down and pulled a pair of miner’s trousers toward herself.

  “Why, Miss Esther, I’m going to watch you,” Mary said before jamming her thumb in her mouth.

  “Oh, no, you’re not, young miss.” Bridget O’Cuin came rushing across the room, one hand holding her greatly rounded belly. “Emma is outside calling for you right now. She had no idea where you went. Shame on you for frightening her so.”

  “Before you go, Mary, I have something for you,” Esther said, reaching into the mending pile on the table. She pulled out a simple doll. “I made this for you.” Turning to her employer, she said quickly, “Don’t worry Bridget. I made it from scraps too small to use for anything else.”

  “I love her,” Mary exclaimed grabbing the doll to her chest. “I’m nursing her.”

  Esther and Bridget exchanged a glance. “You’ll be a good mama someday, but right now young lady you had better march on home before Emma has apoplexy.”

  After a pleasant half hour of mending, Bridget sent Esther to deliver a bag of sheets and toweling to the hotel. Though the bag was large, and several months ago Esther might have thought it to be heavy, after working with wet laundry all day, it seemed light as a feather, and being outside was such a delight, she was happy to sling the large bag over her shoulder. Bending forward to counter the weight of her burden, she headed down the slightly muddy street, past the parsonage and the church, to the next corner where she would turn left.

  Fat, fluffy clouds skidded across the blue bowl of the sky and the subtle smell of damp soil and greening prairie were like a balm to her soul. Winter had been long and hard but she was so happy to have made the changes she had and to find herself greeting spring with an honest job and friends who supported her efforts to turn her life around.

  The hotel loomed large ahead of her. It had been built piecemeal using whatever was available and consequently was full of strange angles and interesting roof junctures. Esther stopped at the door and tried to scrape her feet clean on a mat laying there for that purpose, before entering the dining room inside.

  A tall man, nearly as tall as Hunter Franklin, the blacksmith and tallest man in town, was standing near one of the tables. He was talking loudly with the owner, Mr. Novákov, who was sitting, but Esther couldn’t make out a word. Their voices were full of hard sharp sounds, and throaty vowels. She lugged her load toward the kitchen, apparently invisible to them, when the owner’s daughter stepped through the swinging kitchen doorway.

  “Just in time,” Therese said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll put these away quickly so I can head home.” She lived just across the main street, in an apartment above Hunter’s smithy. They’d been married since Christmas and were still full of starry eyed love. “Can you wait a moment? I’ll have my father pay you.”

  Esther nodded. “Take your time, my work day is done.” It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in love. Not at all. She just thought it should be avoided at all costs because it made you do silly things like risk danger and act foolish. It was far better to approach decisions with logic, eliminating messy emotions. She hoped she never again was so eager to be a dogsbody to a man that she panted to be by his side.

  When Therese returned she went directly up to the older, man sitting at a table. She spoke quickly in their native language and held out her hand. Her father answered, and though Esther was sure he was saying something ordinary like, “I’ll pay her in coins,” the words sounded harsh in their foreignness. She took a step back and nearly ran into the tall fellow she didn’t recognize. “Please excuse me,” she mumbled, realizing he probably didn’t speak English either if he was talking with Mr. Novákov.

  “You are fine,” he said in a thick accent, and moved to the side to make room for her.

  Esther glanced up at him, and up and up. He was lean, his jaw darkly shadowed since his last shaving, probably that morning. His lashes were so dark it looked like he wore kohl around his eyes, making them seem piercing in their gaze. His expressi
on was stern, fitting for his native speech, it being a sharp and guttural language. Her heart sped up and she looked abruptly away, down at her feet.

  Therese held out her hand with the coins her father had given her visible. “Here you go. And I should probably introduce you to Jack Marek. He has a ranch outside of town but doesn’t get in too often. Jack, this is Esther White. She works at the laundry.”

  The man held out his hand. “That would be Jachym. Mrs. Franklin has Americanized my name to suit herself. It’s my pleasure to meet you.”

  Esther looked dumbly at the two hands before her. One holding payment for the laundry and the other, a large, roughly calloused hand offering an ordinary greeting. Why then did she feel threatened? She grabbed the money from Therese.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Nice to meet you,” she nodded at Jack, ready to leave as quickly as she could.

  “You do the laundry here?” he asked.

  She nodded, still looking down at her feet. “I work for Bridget O’Cuinn.”

  “You like that work?” he asked.

  She had nothing to gain by lying and saying she enjoyed it, and it wasn’t like Bridget didn’t know how she felt, so she decided to answer honestly. “Truthfully, I detest it. It’s loud and smelly. But it’s honest work, which is a rare commodity here.” But why was he questioning her? She reached up to pat her hair and realized she still wore the drab kerchief from her work day.

  “Working on my ranch would be honest as well.”

  “What?” She stared at the man, at a loss for what to say. Rather than continue the baffling conversation, she turned abruptly away from him and to the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The young laundress could barely look at him, and Jachym turned to watch her swift progress out the door as she left after their conversation. He couldn’t even have said what she looked like, beyond a hint of dark brown hair escaping a cloth tied over her head. And he couldn’t say what had possessed him to offer her a job. It was true he needed someone at his ranch to clean up and organize things. It had gotten progressively worse each day and with the warmer weather coming, the snow melted off piles of garbage that the hands had piled up.

  His foreman was worse than useless. In fact, though he wouldn’t let on to Mr. Novákov, the management side of his operation was a complete failure. He needed help, this was true, but why would he think it would come in the form of a shapely woman he met for all of five minutes?

  He turned back to the hotel owner and their discussion. In the Bohemian Romani dialect, he said, “Sir, I can provide you with the beef you want but I must make a profit. This is my business, You understand.”

  Mr. Novákov shook his head. “We are almost family, no? I am certain you do not wish to dishonor our relationship by expecting me to pay such a high price.”

  The younger man clenched his jaw. Briefly, he had considered Therese a contender for a wife but it never amounted to anything because she and Franklin had an understanding. For her father to now be acting as though the situation had been more serious was ridiculous. But Jachym recognized it for what it was: a wily old businessman trying to finagle a deal. “For a fellow countryman, I will give you a ten percent discount, but that is my final offer, sir. I have many customers in Deadwood who will pay full price.”

  Therese swung a large knitted shawl over her shoulders. In English she said, “Jack, did you mean what you said to Esther? “

  He answered in kind. “You mean about the job? Certainly. Why?”

  She tilted her head to one side as she looked at him. “What made you think she can do what you want?”

  That was one thing about these American women, he inwardly grumbled. They were always questioning things and speaking out of turn. “She obviously can clean. She washes clothes for a living.”

  “Is that all you need her to do?”

  What a baffling conversation, he considered. And what business was it of Therese’s? “If you must know, and I can see you won’t let up until you do know, I need a person to clean, but also organize things. Perhaps even manage my affairs. A sort of housekeeper and secretary.”

  “And in that short of an acquaintance you saw that Esther holds those qualifications?”

  He scratched his head. “I don’t know. She’s the first person I’ve met who looked capable and she doesn’t like her job. You may not have noticed but there aren’t many unemployed people around here. Most everyone either has their own business or they’re farming or gold mining.” He paused. “What do you think? Is she capable of meeting my needs?”

  “Eminently,” Therese answered. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t abuse her.”

  “Abuse her?” he exploded. The hotel owner’s daughter always seemed to think the worst of him. “I only offered her a job.”

  Mr. Novákov stood up, his back slightly bent and scowled at Jachym. “Why are you yelling at my daughter?” he said in Romani.

  “Papa, Papa,” Therese soothed the old man. “We are just discussing Esther.”

  “Eh,” he dismissed her. “Why would you want to talk about that lóoverni?”

  Jachym was shocked. Why had Therese’s father called Esther a prostitute? She could not be a very successful one if she had resorted to working in a laundry. The old man must be mistaken.

  Therese gripped Mr. Novákov’s shoulder. “Don’t say that about her. She’s a good girl.”

  He shook off her hand and turned back to Jachym. “You must be desperate if you offer jobs to immoral women you have just met,” he spat out. “Give me a forty percent discount on the beef and deliver it on Monday.”

  Good grief, the man was tenacious, the rancher inwardly groaned. He squinted one eye at the hotel owner, a tactic that almost always caused his ranch foreman to wince in fear. “My final offer is a fifteen percent discount, and I can’t deliver the meat until Wednesday at the soonest.”

  “Tomorrow morning then.”

  “What? I just told you I can’t deliver it before Wednesday.”

  “Bring it tomorrow.”

  Jachym slammed his hat on his head and grabbed his leather duster from where it hung over the back of a chair. Jamming his arms into the sleeves he said to Therese, “Tell Esther if she still wants the job to be ready tomorrow morning. When I deliver your father’s beef, I’ll pick her up.”

  Mr. Novákov folded his skinny arms across his chest and smiled. “That will be fine.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Esther had never walked so fast before in her life, as though the hounds of hell were on her heels, and she had no idea why. She nearly ran up the two steps to the laundry and once inside leaned against the door, breathing hard.

  “Why are you in such a rush?” Bridget asked, as she came out of the small corner office.

  “You won’t believe what just happened,” she said breathlessly.

  “Try me.”

  “A rancher named Marek was at the hotel.”

  “I’m familiar with him. He helped when we had that bad storm. You wouldn’t have met him because you were so sick.”

  Esther nodded. She’d inhaled smoke when her chimney got blocked with snow during a blizzard. “He offered me a job.”

  “Wait a minute, you have a job.” Bridget crossed her arms under her bosom, which only served to make her pregnant belly stick out more.

  “I am ever so grateful to you for giving me this job but you know how the noise bothers my ears.” She hoped her employer and friend wouldn’t be angry. Her reasons went beyond the noise, though. The smell made her retch and the skin of her hands was so chapped it cracked when she bent her fingers. She wasn’t opposed to hard work but if she could do something other than labor in a laundry, she’d like to give it a chance.

  “I understand. That’s not to say I’m not disappointed, though. What would he have you do?”

  “I think cleaning. Or maybe organizing. I’m not completely clear.”

  Bridget put her hands over her protruding middle protectively. “That doe
sn’t sound like it’s on the up and up, though I’ve not heard anything but good things about Marek. Was he too forward with you?”

  Esther nearly laughed. “Not at all. He’s a very serious fellow. I’m sure he needs a worker exactly as he said.”

  “But Esther,” the pregnant woman said, “you’ll be the only woman out on that ranch. I know he hired some hands on recently. I’m not sure it’s safe.”

  Esther pulled the kerchief from her hair and patted loose strands into place. “Wasn’t Therese going to marry him at one point?”

  Waving a hand in the air dismissively, Bridget wrinkled her nose. “Her father tried to arrange a marriage but she was having none of it.”

  “Well, there you go,” Esther said as though some point had just been made. “If Mr. Novákov thought Mr. Marek was good enough to marry his daughter, he must be trustworthy.”

  “But you’ll be the only woman there. That just isn’t right.” Bridget leaned against the wall, as if the weight of her belly was too great to support.

  Esther pushed a chair towards her friend. “Sit down before you fall. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But what of my concern?” She may have denied needed help but Esther noticed she sat readily enough.

  Squatting down in front of chair, Esther put her hands on Bridget’s knees. “I have no reputation to risk.”

  “I’m not worried about your reputation, but of your safety. Cowboys aren’t the most refined bunch and they might trouble you.”

  Esther stood and turned away. She’d had her share of troubles, and knew firsthand what punishment an angry man could mete out. She took a deep breath and absently rubbed the scar on her abdomen. She composed her expression and turned back, smiling. “Lore’s been teaching me how to shoot. I can watch out for myself.”

  Bridget shook her head and laughed softly. “Aye, my husband thinks everyone should shoot first and ask questions later. Well, I can see you’ve made up your mind. When will you go?”

  “He spoke of next week. Perhaps Wednesday. But don’t worry, I’ll work right up until he comes for me. I only hope your baby comes before I leave so I get a chance to meet him or her.”