Page 39 of My Heart Will Find You

“I think you better go back to work now,” she said to them. “My husband needs you.” The men gave a quick look at Max, then scattered.

He was left alone with his wife. “What were you doing? A lady doesn’t—”

“Give me a break! I’m not going to be treated like some fragile princess who doesn’t know how to use an iron skillet. I can’t bear being thought of asuseless.”

“You’ve been here less than a day. You don’t have to do everything at once.”

“Maybe not, but lockdown makes people crazy. Anyway, I need someone to take me to Esmeralda’s house to buy vegetables. I can drive two hundred horses but not just two of them.”

He was so puzzled by what she’d said that he hesitated. “She lives in the Mexican village. Tell me what you want, and I’ll send one of the men.”

She just looked up at him.

Max threw up his hands. “I have a painted cat cutting weeds in the front, a lickspittle singing in my parlor, and a wife gambling with my men. Why not go visit the Mexicans? Maybe I’ll build a house there.”

“After you eat one of my enchiladas you might want to,” Etta said, then walked away, her long skirt swishing.

Unfortunately, a couple of men heard her and they laughed.

For a moment Max glared at them, but he couldn’t sustain it. He laughed too. She’d made a good comeback.

Smiling, he followed her into the house. For all that she infuriated him, he was intrigued by her. And more than that, he desired her. Just flat out wanted to take her to bed, but first, he wanted her to feel the same way about him.

8

As soon as Etta reached the house, guilt flooded her. She shouldn’t have wasted time on a cooking contest. Her excuse was that, from her observation, women here were wives, prostitutes, or unmarried, which meant she was a spinster or a widow. And it seemed that the last two were to be pitied. A woman without a man was sad, or in Martha’s case, bitter.

When the cook told Etta she couldn’t do what he did, she lost control. She could almost see Lester. If she’d ever turned down a challenge like that, he would have been ashamed of her. He would have walked away and probably not spoken to her for days.

She just looked at the grizzled old cook and said, “You wanna bet?”

Blazing hot skillets and lots of meat were her domain. The cook stuck his dirty hand into a jar of sourdough starter, preparing to make fried bread. Etta knew that would be too slow. When she reached for a bag of cornmeal, a cheer went up. About half of the men were from Mexico, and they knew a tortilla-in-the-making when they saw it.

Etta rolled out dough on top of a metal box then slapped it back and forth in her hands as she’d done a thousand times. Lester didn’t believe in tortillas purchased from a supermarket.

Oddly shaped tomatoes appeared, and she had an idea they came from the men’s home gardens.

When Etta’s meal was ready quicker and tasted better, she was concerned that she’d made an enemy of the cook. But he was laughing hard. He even whispered that he wanted her to show him how to season the beans like she did.

It had all been wonderful until she saw her husband. It was still strange for her to think of him as such. The men were laughing, cheering, slapping each other on the back and Etta was the center of it all.

He was frowning, but underneath it, she saw curiosity and interest. When an older cowboy told him about Etta winning, for a split second, her husband looked pleased.

That glance gave her courage to be flippant with him. To make a smart aleck reply.

When she got in the house, all she knew for sure was that she needed to make up for lost time. She could wake up from the dream at any moment. She didn’t want to read in some history book that Alice Lawton had died alone.

Not that any of this is real, she reminded herself.

When she entered the house, she heard Sally singing in the distance, probably in the glass room. Alice had taken care of her and the music. Etta was happily surprised to see Freida and Alice at the big dining table looking at a long sheet of paper. They were talking quietly, their heads almost touching, and planning what to plant in front of the house. She heard “elm trees” and “dogwoods.” Etta was relieved. She knew her sister never snubbed anyone, but this was a different time and place. She’d been concerned that Alice might be put off by Freida’s gaudy dress and her heavily roughed cheeks. Etta added “makeup lesson” to her mental list of things to do.

When Etta turned around, her husband was there, looking out the window. He obviously wasn’t approving.

“You don’t want your sister consulting with a scarlet lady?”

She saw the way his mouth tightened. He nodded toward the front of the house. “Now there are two men outside helping her. In half an hour there’ll be four men, then six.”

“Her past customers?”

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