Page 24 of The Rancher's Wedding

And maybe that was why it was probably best that Michael didn’t know the truth about her just yet.

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“That Calvin’s a good guy,” Michael said. He and Estelle were walking back to the ranch, taking a leisurely pace, as everything seemed to be done in this town. The wind blew a cool mid-afternoon breeze in Estelle’s face and it was difficult for her to not feel overwhelmed by the beauty that filled her field of vision, no matter where she looked.

“He seemed quite friendly.”

“Well, we all enjoy our small talk, but he was one of the first people who helped get me situated when we built the ranch.” Michael spoke of the man with fondness in his voice, as if there was more to the story than he could ever possibly tell. “Calvin helped organize a crew of people from out here in Grafton to build it with me one piece at a time.”

“They just helped you?” Estelle asked.

“Well, I paid ‘em what I could, but for the work they gave me, it wasn’t that much. And it worked out, because I was able to repay them later on when the crops started coming in and I didn’t know what to do with it all.”

“This is a dream,” Estelle said. “In Philadelphia, we say you get what you pay for? We say it’s the city of brotherly love, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Michael considered the question. “You know, the community is what you make of it. One bad apple can surely ruin things for everyone, but we don’t want that. I think that we all know we have a pretty good deal here, and while we use money to buy things, we also pay each other in kindness. And, so long as you’re around good people, you always get back more than you put in.”

“It seems a bit too perfect.”

“Well,” Michael said, “we have our problems just like everywhere else. There’s some minor thefts, and often a few of the gentlemen have a bit too much to drink at the saloon, not to mention things like floods and dry seasons, and… other things.” He drifted off, clearly thinking of something else. “But, overall, I’d say things are pretty predictable and that keeps life pretty easy.”

“Life is predictable to an extent in Philadelphia, too,” Estelle said. “But that doesn’t make it easy.”

Predictable like deciding who a girl will marry when she’s only eleven. Estelle thought back to the letter from her father sitting on her desk back at the house. Not too long ago, she knew she had to escape from Philadelphia to avoid being married to Ethan. She was escaping what her father had expected and that was what made him so upset. After leaving on the train, she didn’t ever want to go back. Now, after living here for a bit, she was even more scared about the possibility of her father dragging her back to Philadelphia.

Estelle was willing to take her chances with anything, knowing that it couldn’t be worse than a lifetime with Ethan. Now that she knew what the alternative was, she couldn’t possibly live back in the city with a husband who made her queasy.

She was going to keep that letter sealed. So long as she didn’t look at it, she could keep it in the back of her mind. It was some sort of superstition, perhaps, but somehow it made sense to her that, so long as she didn’t open it, her father wouldn’t be able to find her.

Chapter Nine

Michael was impressed by how quickly Estelle improved her cooking. He would peek in through the window of the kitchen while he was working sometimes to see her going over recipes that her friend Megan had sent her. Was she the best cook in the world? Not by a long shot. But what she had was the same thing she offered to the ranch: pure enthusiasm, and a strong desire to do better. She would improve with time, particularly with proper guidance and gentle encouragement.

Michael walked into the kitchen one early morning as she was putting together a simple meal of beans and biscuits, with a side of some of the vegetables taken from the seasonal crops. As usual, much of the vegetables had ended up on the floor as a result of over-eager cutting, but that was easy enough to sweep up and add to the hog feed.

What bothered Michael was seeing a look of defeat in her eyes. The bean broth was boiling over on the stove and he could see the biscuits on the counter, slightly charred.

Estelle was holding back tears when Michael went over to her.

“I’m not a very good wife, am I?” Estelle asked.

“Well,” Michael said, trying to find the right words that would be both honest and encouraging, “maybe not. But you’re pretty new at wifing, and it’s not the kind of thing one can pick up overnight.”

“Admit it, Michael,” she said, “I’m terrible. I’m hopeless.”

Michael looked around the kitchen, which had filled with a thin layer of smoke, then grabbed a small piece of hide to remove the hot pot of beans from the coal stove to prevent it from boiling over any further.

“You’re not hopeless, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a little help in here. I think maybe it would be better, for the time being, for you to focus on simple meals. Just worry about the beans for today. They’re a good, hearty meal by themselves. You think you can handle that?”

She didn’t respond. Tears still filled her eyes, and Michael hated seeing her like this. He wanted more than anything to say the right thing to make them go away.

“There’s a lot to do on the ranch,” Michael said, “and if I tried learning it all at once like you did, it’d seem next to impossible. Try and just work on a couple of things at a time. Get good at those, and then we can work on learning more. Same goes with cooking. Try and get just the beans really good. When you’ve got that, we can add the biscuits. When you’re good on those together, we can add some more from there, one thing at a time.”

She nodded.

“The beans are still salvageable,” Michael said, “so go ahead and finish up with those. I can cut up the vegetables. The biscuits, we can feed to the hogs, so they don’t go to waste. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds good.” She mustered a half smile as she wiped away a tear that was just about to fall out of her left eye. There’d be more where that came from, but she seemed to have at least calmed down a bit somewhat.

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