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“Garret!” she rushed out. “Yesterday was my first kiss.” Mortified, she pressed her hands over her mouth. Why had she said that?
He turned around and watched her, lips parted as if he wanted to say something.
Unable to bear the silence, she said, “I am confused about Roy, and everything has happened so quickly, and there is something…there is something wrong with you, and the people who work for you, isn’t there? Something dangerous that I don’t understand? And I saved that part of myself for a man I thought I would be in love with, and…and…”
Garret slid his cowboy hat over his head and nodded. “I didn’t think it would be like this either. I wasn’t meant to pair up, Eliza. I’m meant to lead, I’m meant to protect this place, but caring for a woman? It wasn’t in the cards, and now you’ve fallen into something you’ll look back on and regret. I’m sorry for it.” A long, low growl rattled his chest and he suddenly turned and left, slamming the door behind him, leaving her stunned to stand there and listen to them leaving.
****
Without Lenny’s guidance in the early-morning hours, the biscuits would have been in flames, cooked until they resembled unappetizing hunks of coal. Thanks to her, the biscuits didn’t taste half bad…as long as they were smothered in molasses to ward off the dryness. With a side of fried eggs, breakfast was bearable.
After they’d had their fill, Lenny took her riding. She didn’t show her much, other than to adjust her posture, but they went on a long ride around the ranch. Perhaps both to give her time in the saddle so she could adjust to riding again, and to become familiar with the place she would now call home.
She had explored this land in her youth, but it was something more with Lenny, who pointed out rock formations jutting from the craggy earth and creatures that were invisible to the untrained eye.
Behind Lenny, she ducked branches and sidestepped rocky terrain. When her escort pushed her to take Buck up a steep embankment, she squeaked in fear. As terrifying as it had been, upon reaching the top and experiencing the view, oh, what a feeling of accomplishment Eliza experienced. She could see for miles. A view like this didn’t exist in the city. Clusters of bright-green trees dotted the landscape, and a river wound through the land like some great serpent.
By the time they dismounted in front of the house, Eliza’s muscles ached from the combination of riding the day Roy was injured,and the long ride around the ranch. Lenny laughed as Eliza strode carefully into the house. She must look every bit the bowlegged cowboy. If one ignored the fancy dress, of course.
Lenny packed up a lunch of leftover biscuits, cheese, dried beef, and an apple for each of them, careful to show her where everything was, then took a couple of long-barreled rifles off the sturdy hooks that held them. One lesson on how to hold the gun safely wasn’t nearly enough, but the woman headed out the front door, leaving her to clumsily follow behind.
Eliza held her unloaded weapon like it was a snake—as far away from her body as humanly possible. The rifle looked even more dangerous in her soft, unpracticed hands. When the barrel of the gun sagged as her arms grew weary of holding it, Lenny corrected her form to make it easier.
They plodded around the side of the house and headed in the direction of Roy’s place. The thought of him had her sinking into despair. He should’ve been here to show her how to shoot, encouraging her with his kindness and dry sense of humor. By the time they stopped at a lane where a wooden table had been set up, she was close to misery.
Lenny took the gun from her and set it upright against the rickety, weather-worn table, then took hold of Eliza’s hand and led her to a giant cottonwood. In the shade of the sprawling branches, she sat with Lenny and ate lunch.
Lenny really didn’t talk much, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. More like a peaceful one.
In the wake of a low-hanging branch maiming her curls, her hair had fallen from its pins and likely resembled the nest of some deranged buzzard. When Lenny was finished with her lunch, she sat behind Eliza and weaved her thick auburn hair into a single braid down her back.
With the most admirable calmness and efficiency, Lenny showed her how to load one of the guns, stand, and aim. She placed sticks in divots carved into the table, and when she motioned, Eliza aimed at the first one.
How hard could this be?
Boom! went the gun, and would have made her jump if the stock slamming into her shoulder hadn’t beaten the noise to it. She stumbled backward, crying out in pain.
Eyes screwed up and shoulders shaking, Lenny appeared like she tried not to laugh.
“Bollocks, that hurt!” Shocked, Eliza rubbed her throbbing shoulder. There had been no warning for the gun’s kick. Both the blasted rifle and her new friend had betrayed her.
Lenny hurried to her and made her hold up the gun again, then pressed the rifle’s butt tightly into her shoulder. That hurt. She held it more loosely, and Lenny firmly put it back.
“Tightly?” Eliza asked. “Won’t that make it hurt more?”
A shake of the head from her tutor only renewed her skepticism. “Fine. Since you are the professional gunslinger, I suppose I shall have to trust you.”
At the thought of willingly enduring such pain a second time, her heartbeat hammered, but she pulled the sight to the sticks once again. Fear caused her to close her eyes just as she jerked the trigger. The shot went high and wide, missing the target. At least the kick of the gun hadn’t knocked her off her feet though.
Lenny breathed slowly—once, twice, and holding her breath on the third inhalation—and mimed pulling the trigger gently. Then standing behind her, Lenny showed her how to caress the trigger while she stilled her breathing. “Softly,” Lenny told her.
It took exactly eight shots to hit the target, but oh, the feeling of that final success! She’d weathered the pain of each shot, braved every pull of the trigger knowing the gun would ram into her injured shoulder. All of that was well worth the feeling of empowerment when the bullet finally splintered the wooden target. “Ha!” she whooped.
Out in the uncertain wilderness where men lived by their guns, it was a great feat. Lenny even let her celebrate for a few moments. Then, eyebrow arched, the girl handed her another bullet. Never before had Eliza shaken from happiness, but there, in that moment, she was brave and no one could take it away from her. And without Aunt Elizabeth or Garret around, no one tried.
For the rest of the lesson, she fought through the pain, and by the end had become a fair shot at this short distance. After they unloaded the last of the ammunition, she and Lenny headed back to start on the chores around the ranch.
Working a ranch was different from what she remembered. The endless energy that fills young children had fled her in the years of pampered living. Barely able to lift the saddle from Buck, she exhausted her arms trying, then shook with fatigue as Lenny showed her how to muck out the horses’ stalls.
