Cooking Up Trouble Page 23

  Bother.

  She licked her lips. “Mr. St. Pierre asked me to marry him.”

  The grin that spread over D.A. Bologh’s face was so diabolical, Heather had to shut her eyes against it. Why did this man have such a terrible effect on her?

  “He did, did he? He worked faster than I thought he would.”

  She opened her eyes and blinked at him, confused. “I beg your pardon?”

  He waved his hand. “There’s no need to beg, sweetie pie. It’s unbecoming of you.” His sneer was even more ghastly than usual.

  Before Heather could think of something suitably cutting to say, the door was shoved rudely open, and D.A. Bologh vanished in a poof of—well, nothing. If Heather hadn’t been staring straight at him when it happened, she wouldn’t have believed it. As it was, she believed it because she’d seen it, but she couldn’t account for it by any means known to her rational, sane, thinking mind. She could only gape for several moments at the chair where D.A. had been.

  Mrs. Van der Linden’s unpleasant voice jarred her out of her stupor. “I swear to goodness, Heather Mahaffey, if you aren’t the most scatterbrained, irresponsible creature who ever drew breath, I don’t know who is.”

  The woman was unquestionably peeved at her, and Heather wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t sure of anything right then. Standing—she held onto the table for a couple of seconds to make sure she wouldn’t topple over—she said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.” Mrs. Van der Linden tromped over to the sink and plunked the dinner dishes on the counter. “This is your job, and I don’t appreciate Mr. St. Pierre making me do it. I have plenty of my own work to do without being saddled with your chores as well.”

  “Oh.” Heather realized what had happened. She’d been so fuddled when Philippe had extended his proposal—his rather tepid proposal, if she recalled correctly—she’d forgotten all about the dinner dishes. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Van der Linden. I’ll go fetch the rest of them.”

  “You’d better.” Mrs. Van der Linden gave her a good hot scowl to let her know she wasn’t forgiven. “I do declare, Heather, you’re a hopeless case. Hopeless!”

  With a deep sigh, Heather started for the door. “I suspect you’re right, Mrs. Van der Linden.”

  She heard Mrs. Van der Linden huff at her back, but didn’t bother to turn or say anything else. She had a feeling the older woman would have liked to do battle, but Heather wasn’t up to it. She wasn’t sure she was up to entering the dining room again for that matter, but she knew where her duty lay—even if she hadn’t been doing it for a month or more.

  Thank God, Philippe wasn’t there. Quickly Heather retrieved the rest of the dishes, tidied up the room, and fled to the kitchen. Mrs. Van der Linden was nowhere in sight. D.A. Bologh was back—and smirking.

  Heather didn’t even ask how he’d accomplished his vanishing and reappearing act this time.

  * * *

  Philippe frowned at the book in his hand. He’d taken it down from the shelf thinking he could while away the hours before bedtime with a read. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to read. He wanted to be making wild love to Heather. His fertile imagination conjured all sorts of likely scenarios—and positions—for the consummation. He couldn’t recall ever wanting a woman more, and he didn’t understand her hold over him.

  She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world. She wasn’t the cleverest. She wasn’t the shapeliest—although Philippe hadn’t seen too many shapelier.

  “Dammit, man, it’s glands.”

  Far from satisfied with this conclusion but perceiving no other answer to his condition, Philippe considered how she’d reacted to their dinner-table conversation.

  She’d seemed more astonished than pleased by his marriage proposal. He didn’t understand that. Philippe wasn’t a vain man, but he knew good and well that he was considered a good catch in the extremely small Fort Summers matrimonial market. Hell, he was rich and single; most communities never asked for more when contemplating husbands for their daughters. He couldn’t imagine why Heather hadn’t immediately leapt to her feet and accepted him.

  Then again, Heather Mahaffey had never been typical. That, come to think of it, is one of the reasons Philippe admired and desired her. If she’d been a run-of-the-mill female who was champing at the bit for some poor sucker to take her off of her father’s hands, Philippe wouldn’t have looked at her twice. Instead, Philippe had received the distinct impression that Heather didn’t give a rap about marriage, didn’t much want to be taken off of her father’s hands and, what’s more, if she ever did leave home, she’d do it on her own terms, and to hell with what the world thought.

  A gust of wind rattled the windows and a blast of thunder almost deafened him. Philippe put his book down on the desk and walked to the window to stare into the darkness. Lord, the atmosphere was tumultuous out there. He wondered if, with all the thunder and lightning, there would ever be any rain. The whole Pecos Valley needed rain.

  Perhaps the rain god was resting and the wind and thunder gods were sporting with each other. He shook his head, peeved by the jot of whimsy that had crept into his head. Philippe had no truck with whimsy. Whimsy—and romance—were the stuff of fools, and he was not a fool.

  By the light of the stars and the occasional jagged bolts of lightning, he could see the line of Lombardy poplars he’d planted as a windbreak bent almost double. He hoped nothing bad would happen because of the turbulent weather. These dry electrical storms were hell. A chilly feeling crawled into his heart like the premonition of catastrophe.

  Which was idiotic whimsy again.

  A knock at the library door startled him. He walked over and jerked the door open. Gil McGill stood there, his hat in his hands, his hair tousled every which way, and an expression of consternation on his face. Perhaps that chilly feeling hadn’t been idiotic after all.

  “What’s the matter?” Without waiting for Gil’s reply, Philippe grabbed his own hat and started making for the front door.

  Gil followed at a trot. “It’s the cattle, sir. The wind’s blown a fence down out by the barn, and lightning struck that old live oak. Scared the crap out of them, and they’re stampeding. Right toward the Pecos.”

  “Damn.” Philippe knew what that meant, and was surprised when his hand didn’t shake when he grabbed his gunbelt from the stand next to the front door. Graveyard of the cowman’s hopes, indeed, that damned river. Some of the cattle would get stuck in the quicksand, others would stumble over them and smother, others would fall into the water and drown, others would break their necks trying to gallop over the boulders and rocks on the banks, and still others would plunge down the steep banks and kill or cripple themselves in other ways.

  Since both men knew exactly what to expect of frightened cattle, they didn’t waste words on questions or explanations. Philippe was pleased to see that Gil had rounded up the rest of his men. All of them were ready to set out, and one of them had saddled Philippe’s horse. Philippe pulled his bandanna over his nose, secured his hat, signaled to the men, and they took off, pounding across the prairie like an earthquake. Cracks of thunder and a screaming frenzy of a wind accompanied them. Philippe got the eerie feeling they were riding into hell.

  He heard the rumble of panicked cattle before he saw the herd, and he heard the frantic shouts and whistles of the cowboys who’d been minding them before he saw any of them. The men were even shooting into the air in an attempt to get the herd to change direction. That was a dangerous thing to do, since bullets came down nearly as fast as they went up, but this was an emergency, and Philippe didn’t blame the men for trying to slow the herd or turn it in any way they could think of.

  “We can split up and try to surround the herd,” he shouted at Gil.

  Gil, a seasoned cattleman, didn’t even nod. He gestured to some of the other cowboys, and they set off with him in the opposite direction to Philippe. The rest of the cowboys followed Philippe.

  They all knew what they were in f
or. Most of these men had been dealing with cattle since they were born. Experience didn’t make the job any easier. The cattle were spooked, tossing their heads, uttering short, frightened bovine cries of terror, and racing to their individual dooms like moths to a flame. Thousands of pounds of steak on the hoof paid no attention to the few feeble men and horses doing their best to alter their course. Not deep thinkers at the best of times, in a storm like this the beasts acted on blind panic.

  Philippe shouted and waved his hat in the air. His horse was a well-trained cattle pony and knew what he was about, so Philippe didn’t have to spend any time guiding it. Fearlessly, the horse plunged into the fray. The other cowboys’ mounts did the same.

  It seemed like hours had passed, and Philippe’s despair had grown to mountainous proportions, when he realized the herd seemed to be gradually veering away from the direction of the river.

  “They’re turning!” he heard. The cry sounded as if it had come from Gil’s throat, although it was difficult to tell.

  He didn’t dare hope, but a tiny glimmer of confidence began to burn inside him. Dust choked him. He’d be coughing up the stuff for a week, and he’d never get it out of his nose, but he didn’t let up. None of the other men did, either.

  In fact, they’d all heard the cry, and it had renewed their whoops and cries and whistles. A little encouragement, Philippe thought wryly, helped a good deal in circumstances like these.

  He didn’t need encouragement. Hell, he’d never needed it, which was a good thing, since he’d never experienced any. His own fierce determination had been enough for him. He’d be damned if he’d let anything—man, nature, god, or devil—thwart his ambitions.

  Centuries passed—which were only minutes, really—before Philippe comprehended for a certainty that he and his men had won this battle. He didn’t know how many cattle had been lost, and he hoped vehemently that none of his men had been hurt. By the bright flash of a lightning bolt, he saw Gil, dead white in the burst of light, waving his hat. His bandanna had come undone, and he was smiling. Smiling!

  Amazing. Philippe waved back at Gil, although he wasn’t sure Gil could see him. His throat felt as dry as the dust inside of it, his eyes burned from grit, he was coated from one end of his body to the other with dirt, his throat was scraped raw from shouting and sucking in dust, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to breathe freely again in this lifetime, but by God, they’d done it. He didn’t care what Gil said about monetary rewards, he was going to give his men a bonus when they got the cattle settled and the fences set upright.

  He was surprised to hear a horse galloping up behind him. The noise from the herd had been so terrific, he figured he’d have gone deaf too by this time. But the cattle were slowing down, thank God, and Philippe clearly heard the horseman. He turned in his saddle—and his heart went cold.

  Mike Mulligan drew up beside him. He had a small body propped in front of him. The body looked too small to be one of his men, and Philippe frowned. Mike looked scared and shaken. As they all were.

  Philippe barked, “What happened?” His voice sounded like dry bones chafing together.

  “It’s Jimmy Mahaffey, sir.” Mike’s voice sounded the same. “I don’t know how he got mixed up in this mess, but he fell. Thank God I saw him, and I went and scooped him up before the cows could trample him, but he’s hurt. I don’t know how bad.”

  “Shit.” Philippe abruptly turned his horse and searched wildly for Gil. No Gil. Night had fallen long since, the lightning wasn’t obliging him, and the stars only illuminated a wall of dust and about a thousand cows trotting through it. The only bright spot for Philippe at the moment was that the cattle were no longer in a panicked dash to kill themselves in the river.

  “Dammit.” He turned toward Mike again. “Listen, Mike. Take the boy to the house. As soon as I let one of the other men know what’s happened, I’ll join you there. Try not to alarm Miss Mahaffey.”

  Heather. God. Philippe didn’t even want to think about how upset she’d be that a member of her family was hurt—especially Jimmy, the tree-climber, of whom she’d seemed particularly fond.

  “Right.” Mike, perceiving the good sense in Philippe’s command, didn’t bother to say anything else, but spurred his tired horse toward the ranch house. Philippe saw that he was trying to spare Jimmy from being badly jolted, and he appreciated Mike’s care in a losing battle.

  It took several minutes for Philippe to locate another of his cowboys. He had no idea where Gil was, but he relayed the message to the cowboy, who nodded his understanding and went off in search of Gil. Philippe directed his mount towards home.

  His heart was hammering out a dirge when he neared the house. Lights blazed from all of the downstairs windows, and the front door had been left hanging open. The wind was whipping it back and forth like a deranged fan. Philippe scowled, wondering why that was happening. The wind should either slam the door shut or bash it against the outside wall. The blasted door shouldn’t be flapping like that.

  There was no time to contemplate the perversity of nature. As soon as he rode to the porch, he swung down from his horse, patted the animal’s neck, apologized for leaving it in such a condition, and ran into the house. He slammed the misbehaving door behind him, giving it a scowl in passing.

  He heard Heather before he saw her, and headed straight for the front parlor, from whence the voice had come. When he pushed the door open, he stopped in the doorway, unnerved by the spectacle before him.

  Heather Mahaffey was crying. Philippe had never seen her cry. She was the only women he’d known for more than a week whom he hadn’t seen in tears at least a dozen times. She was talking softly and encouragingly to the unconscious bloody mess laid out on a sheet on the sofa. Mrs. Van der Linden stood in back of the sofa, watching Heather, her expression grim and disapproving. Philippe had never seen her look anything but.

  He strode to the sofa and peered down. Poor Jimmy Mahaffey—if that was he, and Philippe presumed it was—had not come through his ordeal unscathed. Indeed, he looked like someone had run him through a meat grinder. Philippe hoped all the blood came from surface scratches. Surface scratches, however, couldn’t account for the boy’s state of unconsciousness.

  “Oh, Jimmy, why did you do it?” Heather was asking. She’d fetched a bucket of water and a chunk of soap, and was trying to sponge the blood off of the boy’s face and clean the obvious wounds. She couldn’t stop crying, Philippe noticed. Glancing around, he didn’t see Mike Mulligan.

  “What can I do to help, Heather?” he asked softly.

  She glanced up abruptly. “Oh, Philippe! I’m so glad to see you. It’s Jimmy. He was hurt.”

  “I know.”

  Mrs. Van der Linden sniffed her censure. “Fool boy,” she muttered.

  Philippe snarled, “The boy was doing a man’s job, Mrs. Van der Linden, and trying his best to save my herd.”

  Mrs. Van der Linden’s mouth shut and thinned until she had no lips, but she didn’t say anything else.

  Philippe’s voice softened when he spoke to Heather. “Where’s Mike?”

  “I sent him for Doc Grady. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? God, no. I was going to go myself, but I guess I don’t have to now.”

  “Thank you.” Heather’s voice sounded shaky.

  “What about your parents? Would you like me to notify them?”

  Heather hesitated for a moment, then said, “No. I don’t think so. It will just worry them, and they have enough on their plates right now.”

  “Won’t they miss him in the morning?”

  She chewed on her lower lip. “Oh, dear. Yes, they will.”

  “I’ll send someone over as soon as it’s light. I’ll tell them we have everything under control and they shouldn’t worry.”

  “Thank you. If—if the worst should happen . . .” Heather had to wait a minute before she could go on. “If the worst should happen—”

  “We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Philip
pe broke in.

  She nodded.

  “Is there anything else you need right now?”

  “No.” She shot him a grateful glance. “Thank you, Philippe. I’m just going to try to clean him up so the doctor can see better. He’s so dreadfully dirty. I—I think most of the blood is from scratches. I hope he didn’t bang his head too hard. Or—or break his neck.”

  He’d be dead already if he’d done that, although Philippe didn’t say so in deference to Heather’s overwrought sensibilities. “As soon as the men come in, I’ll get someone to help you.” He frowned, knowing the men would all be exhausted and filthy. They shouldn’t be in an operating theater in their condition.

  Damn. That left him.

  Mrs. Van der Linden sniffed again. Philippe turned and glowered at her. “Mrs. Van der Linden, I’m too dirty to be of any help in here at the moment. I’m going to clean up in the bathhouse as quickly as possible and then return to assist Miss Mahaffey.

  “In the meantime, I want you to keep Miss Mahaffey supplied with clean, warm water and anything else she needs. After the doctor arrives, we’ll see what else has to be done. There’s witch hazel in the cabinet in the pantry, and some quinine, liniment, and laudanum. If there are any breaks—”

  Heather let out an involuntary sob.

  “—Doc Grady will set them. Make sure there’s plenty of clean linen available to rip into strips.”

  “Yes sir,” Mrs. Van der Linden said, sounding as if she didn’t want to be aiding a Mahaffey.

  Philippe watched her for a good long few minutes, hoping his expression appeared as portentous as he felt inside. It must have, for after a little bit of that, she huffed indignantly and waddled off to do his bidding. He laid a hand on Heather’s shoulder. “I’ll be back as soon as may be, Heather. Are you sure there’s nothing you need before then?”

  She smiled up at him, and Philippe was startled to see the trust in her eyes. Her faith in him touched him deeply; he’d not expected it. “No. Thank you, Philippe. You’re very kind.”