Western Spring Weddings. Lynna Banning

and lifted her out of the saddle. The instant her feet touched the solid earth her legs collapsed under her and she cried out. Gray caught her under the arms and leaned her up against the horse.

      Emily skipped to her side. “Mama, how come you can’t walk?”

      “I can walk perfectly well,” she said as steadily as she could manage. “In...a minute.”

      “Take your time,” Gray murmured. “You don’t have to prove it.”

      It took a full ten minutes before she trusted her limbs to keep her upright, and even then Gray had to half carry her up the porch steps.

      “She is ill?” the man called Ramon asked.

      “Nah. Just tuckered.”

      “Maria...she is inside.”

      Seven steps later Clarissa stood in the doorway of the house and met the startled glance of a short, plump Mexican woman.

      “Ay de mi, Señor Gray, what have you done?”

      “Nothing. Maria, this is Clarissa Seaforth, and—” he glanced left and then right, but no Emily “—her daughter. Clarissa, meet Maria Rocha, my housekeeper and cook.”

      “Ah, no, I am not cook anymore, remember? Not since I get my new stove in my own kitchen. Just housekeeper.”

      The man with the lantern swung up on the porch with Emily’s hand in his. “I find her outside petting your horse, señor.” He relinquished her to Clarissa and set the lantern on the mantelpiece of the stone fireplace.

      “Ramon’s my foreman,” Gray explained. “Ramon, this is Miss Seaforth. And Emily.”

      Ramon bowed. “Señorita. I have already meet Emily,” he said with a wide smile.

      Clarissa untied her shawl and lifted it off her shoulders. Maria’s sudden gasp reminded her she was still wearing the green taffeta with the too-low neckline.

      The housekeeper marched up to Gray and poked her finger at his chest. “Señor Gray, I ask what you do, and you say ‘nothing’? Is obvious you do something, and now you bring her home!” She shook her head in disapproval.

      “Hold on, Maria. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

      “Eh? And what I am thinking?”

      Clarissa took a shaky step forward. “Mrs. Rocha, Gray rescued me from a very bad man in town.”

      Maria’s black eyebrows folded into a frown. “Is so?”

      “Is so,” Gray said with a sigh. “Caleb Arness.”

      The Mexican woman crossed herself. “Very bad man. Very bad.” She pointed to the kitchen. “Come. I make coffee.”

      Gray caught her arm. “Maria, wait. Would you move the things in my bedroom to the room in the attic? Miss Seaforth’s gonna be with us for a while.”

      “Maria,” Clarissa said quickly. “Please don’t move any of Mr. Harris’s things. Emily and I will sleep in the attic.”

      “But is all dusty up there,” Maria protested.

      “I can dust.”

      “And with even cobwebs!”

      Clarissa suppressed a shiver. “I can deal with...with a few spiders.”

      Emily grasped her hand. “I wanna deal with spiders, too! Can I, Mama? Can I?”

      * * *

      The attic room was at the top of a steep staircase, and while Clarissa saw no spiders, a thick layer of dust lay over the chest of drawers and the night table. And the bed! My gracious, when she plopped the suitcase down on top of the quilt, a cloud of dust puffed up into her face.

      Maria appeared in the doorway, her arms loaded with bed linens. “Señorita, I bring sheets and pillows, with feathers. And—ay-yi-yi!—the air up here is make my eyes water!”

      “Me, too!” Emily chimed. “It feels real sneezy, doesn’t it, Mama?”

      “So, the little one is your daughter?” Maria sent a pointed glance at Clarissa’s exposed bosom. “But you not married lady?”

      “Emily is adopted,” Clarissa said quickly. “Actually, she is my brother’s child. Her mother died in childbirth.”

      “Papa not want daughter?”

      “He was lost in a shipwreck at sea.”

      “Ah.” Maria tossed the armload of sheets onto a chair and patted Emily’s red curls. “Pobrecita!”

      Clarissa snatched the patchwork quilt off the bed and gave it a good shake. The air filled with dust. Maria spread the clean sheets over the mattress and plumped up the pillows while Emily scrambled into a white lawn nightie and launched herself onto the bed. “Look, Mama, it bounces!”

      She stepped out of the green taffeta gown and into her batiste nightrobe. “Maria, what time will Mr.—will Gray be up in the morning?

      “Early,” Maria said. “Before the sun. Señor Gray likes his breakfast at six.”

      Six! She was so tired she wanted to sleep until noon.

      “You cook food for him?”

      All at once Clarissa remembered that the smiling Mexican woman was Gray’s housekeeper, not his cook. “I—” Good heavens, what should she say? She had no skill whatsoever in the kitchen, or anywhere else. In Boston they had employed servants before... But she couldn’t think of that now. “Um, I can try.”

      With a nod, Maria left a candle on the nightstand and made her way heavily down the stairs. Clarissa tumbled between the sweet-smelling sheets and tentatively ran the fingers of one hand over her derriere. She couldn’t feel a thing.

      “Mama?”

      “Yes, Emily?” she said with a yawn. “What is it?”

      “I forgot to say my prayers. Can I say them in bed?”

      “Of course.” She would say a few hundred herself.

      Emily folded her little hands under her chin and closed her eyes. “Forgive us our trash baskets,” she whispered, “as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”

      “What? Oh, honey—”

      “Shh, Mama, I’m not finished yet. God bless Mama and Mister Cowboy and Ramon and Missus Maria and...and that pretty black horse I petted.”

      Clarissa mentally added a special blessing for Graydon Harris and for Maria. Then she lay awake, staring up at the thick wooden beams over her head, studying the blue-painted walls and the single grimy window on the opposite wall. Every flat surface was covered in dust. Being “out West” was the farthest thing she could imagine from civilization.

      But perhaps there was one bright spot—she hadn’t seen a single spider! Still, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fix she found herself in. No money. No job. No husband to give her and Emily a home. And absolutely no idea what to do next.

      With a ragged sigh she leaned over and puffed out the candle on the nightstand.

       Chapter Five

      Gray faced his foreman across the woodstove in the tiny cabin. “You took that woman away from Caleb Arness?” Ramon slapped the side of his head. “Señor Gray, have we not trouble enough?”

      “Yeah, guess I did take her away. And, yeah, we have plenty of trouble all right. More than before, that’s for sure.”

      “But, señor...”

      “Yeah, yeah, I know. Arness is bad news.” Real bad news. Ever since he’d outbid the rival