“She does?” Chuck asked. “What does she do?”
Iris marked off the steps on her fingers. “She mixes the batter, she controls the fire in the stove, she checks it in the oven, and she takes it out when she decides it’s done. She doesn’t leave anything to anyone else.”
“You ladies sure are something extraordinary,” Jake exclaimed. “It’s not many women can claim to put on a meal like this, all with the fruits of their own labors.”
“Nonsense!” Violet murmured. “Women all over the country do this sort of thing all the time.”
“But didn’t you tell us,” Mick replied. “That you were raised to be high-brow society women, and that Cornell doesn’t want you doing this sort of thing? Didn’t you tell me you were doing all of this behind his back, to make up for his bad management? Now, that’s sayin’ something. There’s probably not a woman in a thousand who would do that, and there’s probably not a woman in a million who could pull it off. And here you sit, the three of you at one table.”
“I didn’t do it,” Rose corrected him. “I’m not doing anything behind Cornell’s back. It’s Violet and Iris doing everything.”
“You’re here with us now,” Violet reminded her. “You’re getting married against his wishes. None of us could get away with this if we weren’t all doing it together. I’m grateful to you for that.”
“And you’ve kept our secrets, too,” Iris added. “We couldn’t do what we do if you weren’t helping us pull the wool over Cornell’s eyes.”
Jake patted her hand on the white tablecloth. “I don’t mind. To me, you’re just as good as they are.” They shared a heartfelt smile.
Chapter 19
“Rita must be keeping your secret, too,” Chuck pointed out. “You couldn’t be doing any of this with the servants running to the master with tales of your exploits.”
“Oh, she is keeping it,” Violet replied. “She does a marvelous job of helping me make up the fake accounts to show him what we didn’t spend on food and supplies.”
“It’s the same with Pete Kershaw and Wade Jackson,” Iris added. “They help me convince Cornell the ranch is running the way he wants it to run. They don’t tell him about the decisions I make, and they help cover up the results so he doesn’t find out.”
“Not that you have much to worry about with him finding out,” Rose remarked. “He barely sets foot outside the house, much less ride out onto the range to see for himself. He takes Pete’s word for what’s going on, how many head are in which pastures, how many calves the cows gave birth to, and everything else. You don’t have anywhere near as hard a time as Violet has, covering her tracks around the house.”
“And that tale you told us up at the Fort House about mending his clothes when he’s not looking,” Mick recalled. “Now that was impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who would try that and get away with it. Your mending skills must be as good as any professional tailor.”
Violet blushed. “I’m okay.”
“Okay?” Iris scoffed. “She can mend Cornell’s suit jackets so well, a professional tailor would have trouble finding the repair. She makes all our dresses so Cornell can’t tell the difference between her work and dresses bought from shops in Butte or even mail-ordered from Denver. He would pay for it, and she’s good enough to make him think we did. That’s how good she is.”
“And she made our wedding dresses, too. Do you know what she did?” Rose laughed at the memory. “She got Wade’s sister to drive out here from Butte with her sewing basket and measuring tape. Then she went through a big charade, pretending to measure us up for our wedding dresses.”
“Did Cornell watch?” Jake asked,
“You better believe he did!” Violet exclaimed. “I almost fainted in fear that he would figure out what we were doing. He sat through the whole measuring operation and watched and asked questions about every detail. It was a very thorough fitting session, I can tell you!”
“I don’t think Betty ever measured anyone for anything before in her life,” Iris reported. “But she sure put on a convincing show.”
“We told Cornell she worked for a high-end dressmaker out of San Francisco,” Violet continued. “We said we were ordering our wedding dresses from them, and they would ship the dresses out on the stage. When Betty left, I walked her out to her buggy and she gave me the paper with all the measurements. Two weeks ago, we drove down to Butte and pretended to pick up the dresses. We even got some big boxes to not carry them into the house.”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through to make your own wedding dresses,” Jake pointed out.
“It was a lot of trouble,” Violet admitted. “But can you imagine what it would have cost to get our dresses made in San Francisco and sent up here? And when you think about the ranch not doing so well, I just couldn’t live with it—not when I can do just as good a job myself.”
“Cornell will never know the difference,” Rose assured her.
“He probably won’t even attend the wedding,” Violet replied. “From the way he’s been acting, I wouldn’t be surprised if he boycotts it.”
“Do you really think he will?” Rose asked. “I thought he considered it his duty as our guardian to attend, even if he doesn’t approve.”
“Like I told you before,” Violet told her. “He thinks he’ll convince us to call it off.”
Rose opened her mouth to ask her something, but Mick interrupted. “I suppose you ladies have the festivities for Friday all planned out. I suppose you have a big cake and flowers and the whole nine yards. Do ya?”
“Nothing like that,” Violet told him. “Rita will make a cake, but it won’t be big. After all, there’s just the six of us and Cornell.”
“Pete and Wade might come up,” Iris put in.”
“What?” Violet exclaimed. “Don’t they have work to do?”
“There’s always work to do,” Iris replied. “But I told them they could come up if they wanted to. I told them they could take half the day off.”
“That’s a bit out of the ordinary, don’t you think?” Violet asked. “After all, they’re our employees. They aren’t exactly family, that they should attend our wedding.”
“They might not be family to you, Violet,” Iris shot back. “But they are to me. They might be employees, but they’ve been running this ranch almost alone ever since Daddy died. And they ran it with him for fifteen years before that. We have Pete and Wade to thank for this ranch as much as anyone else.”
“But still…”Violet began.
“I invited them, and they’re coming—if they want to,” Iris declared. “They’re more family than Cornell, if you ask me.”
The company shifted in their seats, and Violet jumped in to change the subject.
“To answer your question, Mick,” she continued. “We don’t have fancy decorations, either. The three of us have our wedding dresses, but the service will take place in the back parlor. We can all stand witness for one another. But we don’t have anything very ostentatious planned. You’ll be relieved at that, I suppose.”
“It just makes practical sense to me,” Mick replied. “As you say, there’s just the six of us, and I guess your man Cornell will be there, too, so there’s no point in going all out with the decorations. The whole shootin’ match’ll be over in a couple of hours. Then it’ll be back to business.”
“You’ll be happy when it is, won’t you?” Jake asked him.
Mick shrugged one shoulder. “I never went in for all that elaborate flowers and organ music and party favors and whatnot. We’re getting married, not puttin’ on a carnival. What’s the point of putting up all those decorations when you’re just gonna take ‘em down in an hour or two. Makes no sense to me. Just get up in front of the minister, say the mumbo-jumbo, and get on with the rest of your life. The end.”
“That’s you,” Chuck chimed in. “Mr. Romantic.”
Iris flushed and let out a shocked little gasp.
Mick glanced to his r
ight and to his left and shifted in his chair again. “Nothin’ to do with romantic. Just plain foolishness, if you ask me.”
“Your bride might think differently,” Violet pointed out.
Mick shot Iris a sidelong look. “If she wants to do it, I sure won’t stand in the way. But unless I miss my guess, she doesn’t care much one way or the other.” He caught Iris’s eye, and the two exchanged a smile. Then Iris reached over and squeezed his hand.
So they were doing it, too. Violet breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t getting ahead of her sisters.
Chapter 20
“It would be nice,” Chuck remarked. “If no one came, if it was just us. I think that would be the best way. After all, we’re the new family. Everyone else is just extra. We oughta stick to just the six of us. Make a statement to the rest of ‘em about the way things are going to be from now on. That’s what I think.”
“You’re darn right there, Chuck,” Mick boomed out. “I’m with ya.”
“Chuck is right,” Rose piped up. “After the wedding, we aren’t going to want to share this place with anyone. We should make that clear right from the start. Whatever anyone’s done for us in the past, it’s in the past. We’re making a clean break and starting fresh. What better way to let everyone know than to have a private wedding just between us.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Violet replied.
“I know you don’t think it’s such a good idea,” Rose shot back. “But, if you think about it, we’re basically doing the same thing right now, don’t you think? We’re discussing and planning how we’re going to deal with the people outside this room. We didn’t invite Cornell to this supper.”
“I did,” Violet replied. “I encouraged him to come so he could meet these men and get to know them.”
“What did you do that for?” Iris asked.
“He made a terrible stink about our marriages when I found him in the library,” Violet explained. “He said our fortune would be squandered if we went through with these marriages. He even called you men….” She stopped. Why had she gone this far? She should have kept her confrontation with Cornell to herself.
They waited. “Say it,” Mick commanded.
Violet glanced to her right and found Chuck staring at her, waiting. She stared wildly around the room, but they all fixed her with the same expectant stare. She had no choice but to tell them. “He called you dirty. He threatened to disinherit me if I went through with the marriage.”
“He wouldn’t!” Iris gasped.
“That’s what I thought,” Violet cried. “But he said he held me personally responsible for this whole situation, and he said he would disinherit the rest of you, too, if we didn’t call off the wedding.”
“Can he really do that?” Chuck asked. “He doesn’t have the authority to cut all three of you off. What would he do with the estate, if he did? There would be no legal heirs.”
“That’s what I said,” Violet told him. “I was just joking when I said it, but I asked if he planned to take all the money for himself.”
“What did he say to that?” Chuck asked.
“He said he could and he would,” Violet replied. “He said we’d call off the wedding if we didn’t want to wind up in the street.”
Chapter 21
A hush fell over the table. Violet hated herself for revealing Cornell’s threat. She should never have given it a moment’s thought. She should have treated it as so much hot air. Now, she couldn’t force herself to look at any of her sisters or their prospective husbands.
“That low-down snake!” Mick growled under his breath. “Just wait until I get my hands on him. I’ll teach him his place!”
“What did you say to him, Violet?” Chuck asked. “What did you say when he threatened to disinherit all of you?”
“I told him about our conversation in the buggy,” Violet replied. “I told him Rose and Iris and the rest of you wanted to get rid of him, and that I was the only one still defending him. I told him that, if he knew what was good for him, he would treat you men and us as generously and kindly as he could, or he could wind up in the street.”
Chuck stared at her. “You told him that?”
“Of course!” Violet cried. “He’s been such a colossal boor these last few weeks. Rose and Iris don’t know the half of it because I kept it to myself. But Cornell has done nothing but badger me day and night about this mail-order marriage. I’ve had enough of it! I’ve almost come around to your way of seeing things. If he can’t at least be civil to us, then he doesn’t belong here.”
“Good for you, Violet,” Iris exclaimed.
Chuck shook his head. “He’s a blasted fool for driving you to it. Like you say, if he’d just mind his manners, you would probably defend him until the cows come home. He could have a pretty comfortable life here, if he would only be civil to us.”
“He wouldn’t even come here tonight to meet you,” Violet told him. “When he called you dirty—I can only assume he meant because you’re cowboys—I told him to come along and meet you for himself. I said he’d understand that these marriages will be good for us and for the ranch, and he would see that the moment he saw all of us together. I don’t see how anyone could look at the six of us and not know that. But he wouldn’t come.”
“We don’t need him anyway,” Jake added. Violet jumped nearly out of her seat when he finally spoke. His voice sounded velvety and gentle, but it sent shivers up her spine. “We shouldn’t give him another thought. He isn’t worth our consideration.”
“But how should we deal with him?” Iris asked. “We need a plan, in case he tries to disinherit us. You don’t know him the way we do. He has every banker and lawyer in the territory yapping at his heels.”
“We don’t need a plan,” Jake replied. “He can’t do it. All we have to do is get married. Once that happens, he’ll be completely helpless. There isn’t time for him to disinherit any of you before the wedding and once you’re legally married, all your money passes to your husbands. He can’t do anything. He’s just trying to frighten you.”
“That’s what I told him,” Violet related. “But I didn’t half believe it myself.”
“It’s true,” Jake maintained.
“How do you know?” Violet laughed. “What are you, some kind of lawyer?”
Jake’s black eyes cut straight through her. “Yes.”
Her mouth flew open in astonishment. “But you said you were a cowboy!”
Jake crossed his legs at the knee and leaned against the back of the chair. “I am.”
“But you can’t be both!” Violet exclaimed.
Jake studied her across the table. Then he took a deep breath. “I went to work as a horse wrangler when I was fifteen. A draft horse stepped on my foot when I was hitching him to a wagon and he broke my foot. I was sitting in a hospital bed for six months while I waited for it to heal up. While I was there, I began to read some books in the hospital library. I became interested in the law, so I decided to study it.”
“Where was this?” Chuck asked.
“Down in Texas,” Jake replied. “I come from San Antonio, but I broke my foot in Galveston. So there I was, sitting around with not much to do for six months. So I read a bunch of books and took a bunch of tests. Then I received the results of the tests, and I got a job offer from a firm in Houston.”
“What did you do?” Violet asked.
“I told ‘em I didn’t really want to work in an office all the time,” Jake told her. “My foot healed up, and I went back to breakin’ wild horses. So now you know.” He glanced around the table at the five faces staring at him in amazement. At last, his eye settled on Violet. “If Cornell threatens you again, I suggest you send him packing then and there. The longer he hangs around, the more dangerous he could become. Get rid of him now. He won’t ever come around to being civil to us.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Violet replied.
Jake examined her. “You’re a decen
t person at the bottom. I’m a pretty good judge of people, and I can tell you have a tender heart, especially for anyone you’ve formed an attachment with. Cornell has been a crucial part of your life for years, and you’re naturally reluctant to see him booted out on his ear.”
Violet blinked back tears. “It just doesn’t seem right, that’s all.”
Jake’s eyes never left her face. “I know people pretty well. You might not believe it, but I do. Good, decent, kind people like you think everyone else in the world is like you. You think even a person like Cornell is good and decent and kind underneath it all. You think you can reason with him and get him to understand. But you can’t. He doesn’t think the same way you do. He doesn’t want to make things up with you, and he doesn’t want to find a way to understand you. He won’t ever come around to your way of thinking.”
“So what is there to do about him?” Violet asked.
“Shoot him like a mad dog,” Jake declared. “Get rid of him, and don’t ever let him back inside your house as long as he lives. That’s all there is to do with a man like Cornell.”
“But you don’t even know him,” Violet pointed out. “You’ve never even laid eyes on him. What you’re saying is just as bad as what he said about you.”
“There’s one difference,” Jake replied. “I’m not the one threatening people for even associating with him. I’m not threatening to throw three lovely young ladies out into the street for having supper with him.”
Violet glanced around the table again. No one except Jake would look at her, and she couldn’t stand to hold his gaze any longer. He saw too much of her innermost self, the part of her no one saw—not even Chuck. “This is all too much for me,” she whimpered.
Jack turned back to Rose. “If you think about it a little bit, you’ll realize that sending him away, and keeping this place for ourselves and our families, is the kindest thing we can do for him. What surprises me is that he isn’t smart enough to realize that. You would think a man of his talents and intelligence would see which side his bread is buttered on. Instead, he’s too stubborn and malicious to play second fiddle to your husband’s—whoever they might be. He’s too old and set in his ways, I guess. He’ll cut off his nose to spite his face.”