Mail-Order Man Read Free Page B

longhorn, not to mention Claudine’s debilitating fear at the first sign of Indian attack. While Skylla, too, had been tempted to hide, and while her aim was nothing to brag about, she’d never entertained the idea of handing the rifle to Claudine.
    Kathy Ann lowered the pistol. “I nicked an Injun.”
    â€œBetter you had killed him,” Claudine said.
    â€œBetter he didn’t kill me.” The fifteen-year-old’s gaze cruised over the cupboards. “What’s for breakfast?”
    Claudine’s face went as red as her hair. “Is that all you can think of! You’re already big as a moose. God, what was I doing when I allowed my late husband Mr. Lewis to adopt his misbegotten! You are too dreadful for words.”
    â€œClaudi—don’t.” Skylla turned to her stepsister. Tears welled in the girl’s eyes. “Lovey, she doesn’t mean it.”
    Kathy Ann rushed from the cookhouse.
    â€œClaudi, try to be more prudent with your words.” Skylla had learned to be cautious with hers.
    The redhead chewed the bottom lip of her Cupid’s bow mouth. “Every mother wants her child to behave. She would try the patience of a saint.”
    â€œAll she asked for is something to eat. We all get hungry.” Forcing the accusation from her tone, Skylla said, “Kathy Ann was your third husband’s daughter, and you did agree to adopt her.”
    â€œShe’s had half her life to recover from the upbringing of that prostitute mother of hers. You’d think she would’ve straightened up by now.”
    â€œIf you wouldn’t be harsh with her, she might respond.”
    â€œYou’ve never been harsh, and what good has it done?”
    This was no time to extend the debate over childrearing. Skylla stared at the door Kathy Ann had exited, and thought about what else awaited outside. “I’ll cook her a special treat for lunch. That should make her feel better. For now, though, we’d best survey Stalking Wolf’s damages.”
    Leaving the cookhouse and glimpsing her late uncle’s two-story granite home, Skylla felt older than her twenty-three years. A rope dangled from a rung of the porch railing. The Comanches had stolen the piglet that had been tied there. A quick look at the henhouse yard gave evidence that the chickens were also gone.
    Skylla feared Stalking Wolf was on the verge of stealing her dream—making something of her legacy.
    As had the foreman who’d made off with the ranch’s string of horses not long before the three St. Clair women arrived in late January, Stalking Wolf undermined Skylla’s efforts to get the ranch on its feet.
    The Nickel Dime had once been a prosperous spread. Uncle Titus had made a fortune herding cattle to the market in New Orleans. As well, he’d gotten a king’s ransom in gemstones from the creek, only to lose them to thieving Comanches. That was before he’d left for the war, taking the cream of his cowboys with him and impressing friends and acquaintances along the route to Virginia into Confederate service.
    Her eccentric uncle had then perished at Second Manassas, a battle Northerners called Second Bull Run.
    His fortune gone, he left a ranch stocked with unbranded longhorn cattle. Skylla knew nothing about prospecting for topaz, nor did she have the reference books necessary to learn the skill, and she was ignorant about longhorns. Not that there was any local market for them, anyway. Even seeking to hire help had been a lesson in frustration and aggravation.
    She took note of the positives. “The Comanches didn’t trample my garden this time,” she said to Claudine, who lagged behind. “And we’ve still got a horse.”
    â€œMonroe is on his last legs.”
    â€œHe’s better than nothing.”
    â€œAlways the optimist, that’s my daughter and best friend.”
    They were best friends, and had been for a decade before