The Cowboy's Cinderella. Carol Arens

kept up like it was, the River Queen could sail the Missouri for years to come.

      She was smiling and tying the red-flowered belt through the loops of her pants when there came a vigorous pounding on her door.

      She opened up with a grin on her face, ready to greet her visitor.

      “Captain wants to see you in the pilothouse.” Tom announced without his usual smile. “Like to know what you did to make him so out of sorts. We’re all paying for it, so you know.”

      Generally, Uncle Patrick was a man of slow temper.

      What in good glory could have happened?

      She watched Tom stomp away without closing her door behind him.

      Following him outside, she shut the door then climbed the stairs to the pilothouse two at a time.

      “Uncle Patrick! Tom says you...oh, hello there Travis.”

      Uncle Patrick did look as glum as Tom described. He stood beside the wheel with his fist gripped tight on a polished spoke.

      Odd that he didn’t look up at her greeting. No...and neither did Travis.

      That handsome fellow sat on the bench, his hands hanging between his knees while he stared at the high shine on the floorboards.

      Something was wrong! Misfortune of some kind was about to rain down upon them. Sure did look like it had to do with Travis.

      “Gosh almighty, Uncle Patrick, why the long face?”

      Silence answered her question. Worry made her heart pound and her belly flip.

      “Somebody sick?”

      More silence.

      “Dead?”

      “We’ve located Eleanor,” Travis finally said with a sidelong glance at her.

      Blamed if that glum look didn’t make her feel like she needed to run to the rail and vomit. His expression looked as miserable as hooves stuck in deep mud. Eyes that only yesterday shone bright green were the color of dull moss.

      “She’s dead?” Poor Travis! He would lose his ranch.

      Travis shook his head.

      With a nod, Uncle Patrick indicated that she should come closer to him.

      Keeping one hand on the wheel, he circled her shoulder, tugging her close. His fingers bit to the bone.

      Gosh almighty, his touch had never bit to the bone, even when he was in a temper.

      “She’s you.”

      “And you’re the Queen of Sheba!” This was one grand joke that her uncle and Travis were playing, but she would go along, laugh out loud until they did too. “And I reckon Travis is your trained leopard.”

      She slapped her thigh, guffawed...but...something was still wrong. Humor had not brightened the desolate mood beating against the walls of the pilothouse.

      The men were not laughing.

      Travis stood up, shoved both hands in his britches pockets.

      And just there, at the corner of Uncle Patrick’s eye, a tear welled.

      “When I went to bed last night, my name was Ivy...still was when I woke up this morning, far as I can tell.” As much as she willed it not to, her voice quavered.

      “Eleanor Ivy Magee,” Uncle Patrick said, “is the name you were born with.”

      “You’re making that up!” She gasped, but she couldn’t imagine why he would. Unless—

      “I reckon you’re just wanting to get me married off to some rich fellow so I can’t be a river pilot.” Her voice was rising now...in anger, or panic, certainly denial.

      She spun on Travis. “You can’t just make up an heir. I’m not her!”

      “Take out your necklace, the one your mama gave you.” Uncle Patrick shoved his hand through his gray hair. “Read the back.”

      “I don’t need to read it—I know what it says.” She folded her arms over the ache in her belly. It was exactly thirteen stairs down and twenty-seven steps to the rail and a temporary relief. “Anyone can have a trinket with letters.” Now she was grasping for solid ground and making no sense whatsoever.

      She had always known the necklace was special. One of the memories she did have of her mother was of that necklace. She’d sit on Mama’s lap and twist it in her chubby fingers.

      “The ranch is yours,” Travis murmured. The line of his jaw looked tight, tense. “All you need to do is claim it.”

      “You’ll be secure, have the home and family you ought to have.”

      All of a sudden she could not feel her legs. She plopped down onto the bench. The hard wood slapped her bottom.

      “I never wanted that, Uncle Patrick. You did.”

      “Maybe, but given that I raised you, I figure I have the right to determine what is best for your future.”

      “Gull-durn it, Uncle Patrick!” Yes, she did shout that. “If a home and family is all that grand, why didn’t you marry?”

      “My life was on the river. It would not have suited.”

      Suddenly her legs didn’t feel weak anymore. Anger made them stiff and twitchy. She leapt up.

      “So is mine!” She braced her feet apart, anchored her balled-up fists on her hips. “I’m of age. You can’t force me to leave the Queen. You’d have to hog-tie me and—”

      “I’m selling her.”

      Words of defiance, of independence died in her sagging jaw.

      “You aren’t! You love the Queen.”

      “No, Ivy, I love you. This grand life we’ve lived...it’s dying. Captain Cooper of the River Belle has made me an offer. At this point in my life I’d be a fool to turn it down.”

      “You can’t sell her. She’s our home.”

      He shook his head. The sorrow in his expression crushed her heart. He loved this boat as much as she did.

      “Mr. Murphy will take you back to your ranch. You’ll marry and give me lots of grandbabies. You’ll be surprised at how good your life will be.”

      “I’m piloting a boat. Maybe not this one...but I’ll do it. Just you wait and see!”

      She sounded like a twelve-year-old not getting her way; she knew that but could do nothing to act otherwise.

      Uncle Patrick turned his back on her. Gripped the wheel he cherished in both fists.

      “Be ready to travel at sunrise,” he stated.

      She’d be ready to travel all right, but not to the Lucky Clover Ranch.

      She spun about, nailed Travis Murphy with a glare.

      “Why you low-down—” She caught her breath at the brokenness of his expression. “I thought you were my friend.”

      “I never meant to hurt you, Ivy. I didn’t know who you were.”

      She lifted the necklace from her throat and shoved it at Travis’s balled-up fist. It tinkled when it hit the floor.

      While it hurt like a hornet’s sting to give up the remembrance of her mother, the past was the past and she was headed to a future of her own making.

      * * *

      What Ivy needed was time, Travis decided. Time to think things through. That’s why he didn’t go after her when she ran out of the pilothouse yesterday afternoon.

      That’s why he’d spent fifteen minutes knocking on her door this morning only to discover that she had fled in the night.