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“I didn’t know they had a nanny. That seems so...old-fashioned.”
“Well, a mother’s helper, or whatever you want to call me. Twelve is a lot of children to have, and God knows Eunice had sorely needed the help. Especially with the first ones, since they came so fast.”
“Are you still helping?” Alaska wondered why she hadn’t seen the woman before.
“I’m mostly retired now. I help watch some of the grandkids. They’re not mine, but they feel like it.”
“I didn’t know anyone had any other kids.”
“If you’ve met Priscilla, she has two children, but they’re school-age, and that’s where they are right now. They were pretty upset they were going to miss working the cattle today.”
“I bet,” Alaska said, without any conviction. She had been thrilled when Ezra had told her she didn’t need to go out, but that she could stay inside. Cattle were scary, and she had no idea how to handle them. She could only imagine that she’d end up hurt, if she didn’t burst into tears.
She didn’t think of herself as a weak person, but...cows were scary.
Nelda chuckled a bit as Alaska adjusted Eugene who had mostly stopped crying. There was something soothing about Nelda’s voice that infused a sense of calm into Alaska as well.
“You sound like you couldn’t imagine anyone being upset that they didn’t get to work cattle,” Nelda said, and there was humor in her tone.
“Was it that obvious?” Alaska asked with a soft chuckle.
“If you’re going to be working here on the ranch, you probably ought to get used to them. It...would not be a good look for you to be afraid of cattle while you’re working on a cattle ranch.”
“Actually, I’m getting married to Ezra tomorrow.”
She hoped she wasn’t speaking out of turn. If this woman meant a lot to Ezra, maybe he wanted to tell her himself. In Alaska’s experience, men were much less picky about that than women, but she didn’t know Ezra very well. If she had to guess, he would thank her for saving him the trouble of having to tell someone.
Nelda gasped. She blinked and then narrowed her eyes a bit at Alaska, as though trying to see what in the world Ezra could have seen in her that would cause him to want to marry her.
“Ezra? He’s getting married? To you?” There was no insult in her voice, but there was a lot of disbelief.
“I know. I can hardly believe it either. We don’t really seem like two people who would end up getting married.”
“Well, I suppose now that you mention it, there’s that. But... Ezra is just so solid. He never does anything on the spur of the moment. He thinks everything through.” She laughed, and some of her humor had come back. “It took eight years for him to finally move to Sweet Water.”
“Really?” She couldn’t imagine taking eight years to make a move.
“There were some hurdles to overcome. Some difficulties with the sale in Wyoming and with permits and things they needed to get in order to make this ranch what they wanted it to be, but I think Ezra would admit that some of that time was him just being methodical.”
Alaska tried to picture herself taking eight years to make a decision, and she couldn’t. She didn’t know anyone that methodical. Maybe, maybe she wasn’t the only one with some issues coming into this marriage. For some reason, the idea that Ezra wasn’t perfect actually made her feel better.
“So I guess that’s what I was thinking. Ezra also has a girl, Sondra, and I thought they were engaged. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they stayed engaged for the next twenty years, and Ezra never made a move. He’s...like I said, very methodical.”
“Ezra is engaged?” Why hadn’t he told her?
“Well, I don’t know all the details, but I’m guessing that Sondra probably asked him, and if he even said yes, I’d be surprised. He probably grunted, and she took it as a yes. I don’t think she likes him any more than he likes her, but it suited them both to be engaged.”
That didn’t really make Alaska feel any better. She didn’t want to be married to someone who wanted to be married to someone else.
“So if Ezra decided that he was going to marry you, and you’re getting married... Did you say tomorrow?”
“That’s what he said.” She didn’t want to go into all of the issues from her past and the fact that there were people who wished her harm. That wasn’t something she was proud of, and it felt like starting off on the wrong foot to simply introduce herself and say, “yeah, I know drug dealers.”
“Wow. That is...very out of character.” Nelda shook her head and then bounced Alice, who had quit crying and was now smiling and gurgling up at the older woman. “Did he mention me? Because, if you are going to be here on the ranch helping at all, I’d love to take care of your children. That is, if you trust them to other people.”
Alaska almost swallowed her tongue. Did she trust her children to other people? How about shedropped them offwith other people.
But that had not been something she wanted to do. More of a necessity. Alice had been well taken care of with Travis, but she’d asked her best friend, Lucy, to keep an eye on Eugene for her for a few weeks, and Lucy had skipped town, leaving Eugene with her father. Her father was a decent person at least, but he was too old to take care of a toddler, and he ended up calling Alaska, who hadn’tbeen able to pick him up, and she told him to take Eugene to Travis and Ellen’s house.
