Only 05 - Autumn Lover

insight to see that she meant every word.
    By now, Belinda would have been sniffling and stamping her little foot, beside herself with pique. Then she would sulk for hours. Days, sometimes .
    God, a girl can make life tedious for a man .
    Wonder what Elyssa does when she loses her temper. Scream and swear like a fishwife ?
    “In a snit, are we?” he asked, almost smiling, curious.
    It was a look Elyssa had seen on her cousins’ faces when they thought they had her on the run. It took the fire out of her reckless temper as nothing else could have.
    “We?” she asked with false gentleness. “I think not. I’m quite calm, thank you. We can discuss what I want you to do as foreman tomorrow, over breakfast. Perhaps you’ll be over your, er, snit by then.”
    With that, Elyssa lifted her skirts to keep them clear of the barn floor and walked away from Hunter.
    Hunter watched. Blood slid hotly through his veins with each of her steps. He told himself it was anger.
    The vital hardening of his body told Hunter that he lied.
    Soft, filmy, clingy skirts should be outlawed , Hunter told himself. So should girls with swinging hips, sea colored eyes, and hair the color of a harvest moon .
    If I had the sense that God gave a gosling, I’d mount up and ride out of here .
    But I won’t. If I stay here, I’ll get the rest of those murdering Culpeppers .
    Unless she fires me first .
    The thought made Hunter frown. If Elyssa fired him, he would have no excuse to hang around the Ladder S. He needed to appear like a man interested only in cattle, not Culpeppers.
    Damn! I’d better go and see if I can smooth her ruffled feathers .
    But by the time Hunter secured the stall door, blew out the lantern, and hurried outside, Elyssa was gone.
    “Elyssa?” Hunter called quietly.
    Nothing came back to him but silence.
    Then there was a flickering of light near the house as a door opened. It closed with a finality that echoed back through the night to the barn.
    Any smoothing that got done would have to wait until morning.

4
    W ell before dawn of the next day, Elyssa was up and working in the kitchen, measuring flour for bread. Beneath an apron made of flour sacks, she was wearing another of her English country dresses.
    This one was a sea-green silk. Irish lace filled in the deep neckline. Once there had been a luxurious fall of lace from each wrist, but no longer. She had removed the filmy stuff the first time it dragged through the kitchen fire, threatening to burn the dress and her with it.
    Humming a waltz softly to herself, Elyssa sifted and measured. Her movements were rhythmic and graceful, as though she were dancing. Her skirt swirled lightly and then clung with each motion of her hips. The deep, gathered scallops of the skirt were marked by red silk rosettes. The color was repeated in the flounced scarlet petticoat that peeked through between the gathers.
    Elyssa’s English cousins would have been shocked that she wore only a single scarlet petticoat beneath her full skirt instead of the customary crinoline. Like filmy Irish lace, the hoops and stiff fabric of a crinoline simply got in the way of the ranch work.
    But then, everything about me horrified my high nosed cousins , Elyssa remembered wryly. Mary Elizabeth nearly fainted when she found me in the estate’s herb garden .
    When her cousin had discovered that Elyssa was picking herbs rather than flowers and—horror of horrors—actually planning to use them in a bread of her own making, the outcry was intense.
    They would have made less fuss if they had found me naked in the hayloft with a stable boy .
    A sound from the lower bedroom next to the kitchen made Elyssa glance up. Moments later Penny hurried into the kitchen. Her gingham dress was faded and stained with age, but like Penny herself, the cloth was as clean as a new coin.
    Hastily Penny reached for an apron and tied it around herself.
    “Sorry, I overslept,” she said.
    “It’s all right. You’ve been under the weather lately. Make the coffee, would you? I never can bring myself to add enough beans to turn it into Missouri mud.”
    Smiling, Penny reached for the tin that held coffee beans. She poured a handful into the coffee mill and turned the crank. The harsh yet companionable sound of coffee being ground soon filled the ranch kitchen.
    As always, a pot of beans simmered at the back of the stove, basic rations for men who worked cattle. But the Ladder S had a tradition of feeding its hands better