Another one of Lucy’s mail-order husbands. At least she was prepared this time. She knew what to expect and what to do. She’d be honest and forthright, but kind when she sent him on his way. “I’ll be right in, Ana. Would you please bring us some coffee?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She watched the young woman go back in the house, and let out another sigh, then hopped down from the fence where she’d been perched, watching Jake with Cinnamon. He’d done well, considering he’d never done this before. He was a natural, despite his initial statement revealing he was uncomfortable with horses, but then, his only experience had been years ago, and with a horse who probably didn’t like anyone except for Father O’Malley.
Yesterday, they had put the bridle in the horse’s mouth. Cinnamon hadn’t liked it much, but Jake managed to handle herjust fine. Today, they’d put a saddle on the filly for the first time. Cinnamon hadn’t been happy about that, either, but Jake had managed to calm her down…and keep her calm, talking to her. The horse seemed to understand..
“Jake? Will you be all right out here with Cinnamon alone?”
“Cinnamon and I will be fine. She likes me.” He stopped and stroked the horse’s neck, the reins held loosely in his hands like he’d been doing this all his life.
She was amused and touched by his obvious affection for the filly, as well as his growing confidence. “Yes, she certainly seems to. Take her around the ring a couple more times then let her into the paddock with the other horses. When I come back, we can continue your riding lessons.”
He touched the brim of his hat, then smiled at her in such a way that her pulse quickened and flooded her with warmth. “Yes, ma’am.”
Evie walked across the barnyard and garden and entered the house. Hilde, Ana, and Felicity were in the kitchen, obviously waiting for her, expectation and humor on their faces.
“Not one word,” she warned them, as she gave them each a look, then pushed through the swinging door and walked down the hall. She peeled off her gloves and removed her hat, leaving them on the table beside the parlor door. Pasting a smile on her face, she stopped in the parlor doorway, the greeting on her lips dying.
The tallest, thinnest man—emaciated might have been a better word—she’d ever seen wasn’t sitting in one of the chairs waiting for her. No, he was busy rearranging all the photographs on the table in front of one of the windows, using his pristine white handkerchief to wipe the dust from both the surface and frame before placing each picture precisely so. He stepped back and admired his handiwork, adjusted one of the photographs and let out a sigh. She could have sworn she heard him mutter“perfect” before he bent low and picked up a wooden block with the letter A on it from the floor. He started to put the toy on the table among the photographs, seemed to shudder as if doing so would offend his sense of order, then stuffed the block into the pocket of his loose black suit, followed by his handkerchief.
Who does that? Who comes into a complete stranger’s home and begins cleaning it?
Granted, she didn’t have the cleanest home in the valley. Who would with so many people living in one space, not to mention the children, who were prone to leaving their toys wherever they happened to be playing with them?
He hadn’t seen her yet. Maybe she could just slip away and have Ana say she wasn’t available, but that wasn’t her way. She pasted a smile on her face and walked into the room. “Hello. May I help you?”
He turned quickly and Evie took an involuntary step back. She’d never seen a person so pale before, as if he’d lived in the shadows and never walked in the sunlight. Or perhaps, he’d been ill for a long time…a very long time. The blackness of his suit didn’t help at all. The color only served to make his skin even whiter by comparison.
Twin spots of color flared on his high cheekbones, as if he’d taken rouge and drawn red circles on his face. His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Miss Miller?” His voice was just as reedy as the rest of him, like it was an effort for him to speak.
“Yes.” She couldn’t judge how old he was. Certainly older than her, but by how much, she couldn’t tell. There wasn’t a wrinkle on his gaunt, clean-shaven face, not even smile lines around his mouth. His hair, a dirty dishwater gray, was slicked back with much too much pomade, the comb marks clearly visible…and perfect somehow.
“Barnaby Ambrose.” He moved toward her and extended a skeletal hand, his fingers long and bony, the nails surprisingly manicured. For a moment, she thought he might kiss her hand, but he grasped hers instead, his grip weak and so very dry. “A pleasure to meet you in person after our exchange of letters,” he said as he pumped her hand up and down, precisely twice then released her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the chance you would be home this afternoon. I just arrived in Serenity yesterday and I would have liked to have visited you then, but the journey, quite frankly, exhausted me.”
Yes, she could believe that. Just the short walk from the window to where she stood had left him breathless and wheezing.
His pale gray eyes swept over her face, then came to rest on her cheek. A small shudder rippled through him as that white handkerchief came out of his pocket once more. “If I may? You have something on your face.” His lips pressed together as he raised his hand. “I believe it’s…I’m not sure what it is.”
Was he going to touch her? She resisted the urge to recoil from the possibility, but she did take a step back and grab the handkerchief from him. “Oh, I was out by the corral. It must be dirt.”
“Dirt?” His eyebrows lowered, forming a perfect furrow and his lips pressed together even more, making his cheeks sink in a little. What was that? Disgust? Distaste? Intolerance? A ranch would be the last place he should be if that were the case. Instead of being offended, as he seemed to be, Evie was amused. Montaña del Trueno was not the place for him.
“Well, yes, this is a working ranch. There is dirt and dust everywhere,” she said, as she strode to the small mirror beside the door. She inspected her face and noticed a small splotch of dirt on her cheek, hardly enough to be noticeable, and yet he had noticed. She resisted the urge to giggle as she wiped itaway and turned away from the mirror and walked across the room. She held out his handkerchief. “Thank you.” Mr. Ambrose hesitated before he took it with just forefinger and thumb with an expression of pure horror. Evie stifled the urge to laugh and gestured to one of the chairs. “Please have a seat. Ana is bringing coffee.”
He used the handkerchief again, despite the fact that it was now a little dirty, to swipe at the chair before he sat then made a huge production of straightening the crease in his trouser leg and flicking some imaginary lint from the black material. When he finished, his gaze flew to her boots. She followed his line of sight. Her boots were covered in dust, as one would expect them to be, while his shoes were buffed to a high polish. Again, those thin eyebrows furrowed on his pale forehead, and it took everything she had not to laugh out loud. Oh yes, a ranch, especially one with young children, was the wrong place for this man to be. One couldn’t walk through the barnyard without kicking up dust.
She got right to the point. “Mr. Ambrose, there has been a misunderstanding. I did not write the advertisement you responded to, nor did I write the letter asking you to come here to meet. It was my niece, doing so on my behalf…without my knowledge I might add, but I must ask—given your obvious…distastefor all things dirty and dusty, why would you come here? Surely, you must have expected such, considering that this is a working ranch.”
He cleared his throat and those twin spots of color on his cheeks seemed to get brighter. “My doctor suggested a climate drier than Atlanta. For my lungs. And then, I saw your advertisement and I thought, New Mexico has a dry climate. I considered it serendipitous.”
So, in reality, he wasn’t truly looking to get married, he was just looking for a dry place to live. If a wife came with the location, so much the better.
Ana chose that moment to bring in the coffee service. Given the expression the young woman wore, it was clear that she’d never seen a man such as Mr. Barnaby Ambrose. She bit her lip, but her chocolate-brown eyes twinkled with amusement. She placed the tray on the table between them, nudging the photograph of Miguel out of the way.
“Thank you, Ana.”
She dipped a slight curtsey then exited the room as fast as her feet could carry her. Evie was certain she heard a bubble of muffled laughter as she slipped through the door. She could just imagine that Hilde and Felicity were trying to steal peeks at him, too. By supper, the news that another one of Lucy’s potential husbands had visited would be all over the ranch—if it took that long—and she could just imagine the description they’d give of this man.
