Chapter 8
A frustrated Julia rifled through the
contents of her wardrobe yet again.
Pinks, reds, blues, greens, blacks, flashed past as she pushed dress
after dress aside. Because of school she
had twice as many clothes as any of her sisters, all in the latest fashions. But nothing to wear.
Julia’d always been taught that you
dressed up to go courting, you looked your best. But she couldn’t exactly wear her Sunday silk
dress for what she had planned. It would
look ridiculous for one thing. And for
another, it wouldn’t survive five minutes.
No, she had to have something.
With that thought, she dove back into
the wardrobe, hoping to ferret out some old outfit she’d forgotten about at the
back of the closet, something that would be appropriate for courting Jamie. But moments later she fell back on her behind,
weight braced on her hands as she emitted a groaned growl of frustration. Nothing.
“Whatcha doin’?”
Julia turned her head to glare a brusque
comment at her brother, Harry. But she
stopped as she really looked at how he was dressed. Without a word in response she scrambled to
her feet and pushed past him into the hall..
“Hey!” Harry squealed in annoyance as he
fell back against the wall from the force of her shove. “Watch it!”
But she never heard him. She was already climbing the stairs to the
attic, where her mother kept trunks of their old clothes. Within a matter of moments she was holding up
an old pair of dungarees one of the boys had outgrown. They were so badly stained and ripped up that
Dawn Star hadn’t forced the next child to use them. But they were perfect for what Julia had in
mind.
She smiled broadly as she imagined
Jamie’s reaction.
**********
Julia
took a huge, fortifying breath and pulled open the barn door, slipping
inside. A north winter wind ripped the
door out of her hands and slammed it shut behind her with a loud bang! She jumped at the sudden loss of control as
much as at the noise.
Two mops of brown hair, one longer and
shaggier than the other, popped out of different stalls. The shaggy head bore a quick smile for her,
nodded and disappeared back into his stall.
The other, the one with the tightly shorn hair that almost wasn’t,
didn’t look nearly so friendly.
Jamie scowled as he saw who’d invaded
what he considered his domain. He leaned
the pitchfork he’d been using against the opened stall door and wiped his hands
crossly on his pants as he stepped out into the center aisle of the barn.
“What’re ya doin’ here?” he growled, as
menacingly as he could when he could barely breath.
The pair of trousers she’d donned used
to be white, at some point, so they shone bright even in the dim lights of the
barn’s interior. And it would be
generous to say they fit her. They were
so tight he wasn’t sure how she could move in them. He knew he could barely move without
embarrassing himself, as his own trousers got tighter by the second just
looking at the way she was dressed. And
that was before he started to consider the possibilities presented by all the
tears and rips scattered up and down the legs.
There was a quite interesting one…..
“I came to help,” Julia said matter of
factly, walking toward the tack room.
“Haven’t seen much of you around since I got back. And, to be honest, I’ve missed being around
the horses. I got to help out some at
the barns at school, but, being a lady and
all,” she sneered slightly at the term lady, “they wouldn’t let me really dig
in and help. Kept telling me not to get
my hands dirty and to go back to the kitchens, where I belonged.”
Jamie winced at the bitterness slicing
through her words. He could just imagine
how that attitude had rankled her.
“Yeah, well, maybe they had a point,” he
grunted in sudden inspiration. If he
could make her mad maybe she’d leave on her own and he could… relax.
Julia felt rage swell in her chest at
the comment. But, instead of railing at
him the way her tongue demanded, she almost literally bit her lip, tightened
one hand into a fist at her side, and… let it go. Instead, she pasted a smile on her face.
“Are you trying to say I’m not capable
of working with the horses?” she asked in dulcet tones, tones that held an
undercurrent of threat in them, despite her best effort.
Jamie shrugged casually and slipped his
hands into his pockets as he leaned against the wall. Julia had to swallow hard to get past the
sudden dry patch in her throat at the sight he presented, all lean, lanky and
unperturbed.
“All I’m sayin’ is, this ain’t you no
more. You an’ those fancy, silk dresses
of yers that go along with that high falutin’ degree. You’ve got more important things to do than
waste yer time, and mine, playin’ in the dirt with us nobodies.”
Julia took a determined step forward,
forcing herself to look past the hurtful words and really listen to what he was
saying. She wanted to cry at the pain
she saw then, but knew that wasn’t going to help her cause. He didn’t want her pity.
“I can do anythin’ you can do,” she
muttered through gritted teeth. “Better
than you!”
“Hah!” Jamie threw his head back and
laughed, loud and long. Finally he
lowered his chin and met her gaze. “You
wouldn’t last out the mornin’.”
“I’m the same girl who used to beat you
at cleanin’ out the stalls mornin’s, and then race ya down to the swimmin’ hole
ta cool off after,” she bragged, unconsciously falling into the accent of her
youth, instead of the cultured language of her education.
Jamie straightened and walked over to
her, roughly grabbing her hands in his and turning them palm up. He stared down at the silky soft, smooth
skin, gently running one thumb back and forth across it, to verify it was just
as unmarred as it appeared. He snorted.
Holding up one hand between their faces,
the other still clasped in his, he said, “You think you can keep up with me
with this? You’d be so blistered by noon
you’d be crying. You’ve gotten soft
along with educated. And that’s
fine. Fer you. But it don’t do me no good, here in the
barn.” He suddenly dropped her hand and
pushed at her shoulders, shoving her toward the barn door. “Now, git.”
Julia stumbled slightly, then let loose
with the glare that had been trying to escape for awhile now. “Who died and made you boss?” she
growled. “I did plenty of hard work at
college. If you think working in the hot
kitchen in the middle of a sweltering Iowa summer is ‘soft’, you’ve got another
think comin’. Not ta mention all the
long, hard hours I spent bent in half helpin’ tend an’ harvest the crops. ‘Soft!’” she snorted back at him.
“That wasn’t real farm work,” Jamie
muttered, trying desperately to get her to leave him alone. To just leave him, so he could stop fighting
the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her until neither one of them could
breathe. “That was just wimmen’s work,
cookin’, tendin’ the garden. You’d never
be able ta keep up with real work.”
The sound of the slap rang through the
barn, causing several horses to nicker and stick their heads over the stall
doors to see what was going on. Julia
tried not to wince at the bright red handmark now standing out starkly on
Jamie’s cheek. But he’d deserved it.
“You better be glad yer Ma and Pa didn’t
hear what ya just said,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “Aunt Lou’d tear ya ta pieces and Uncle Kid’d
bury what was left.”
Jamie tried not to quail under her
diatribe, even though he knew she was right about how his parents would
react. He didn’t really believe the
words he’d said. He just figured they
were his best chance of getting rid of her.
“Well, it ain’t goin’ ta work,” she
continued, unconsciously voicing his next thought. “I’m here ta work, and that’s what I’ll be
doin’. And make no mistake about it,
I’ll keep up with you all day long!”
Turning her back on him, she didn’t wait
for a response. She marched over to the
tack room and grabbed a pitchfork of her own.
Jamie grunted as she came back out and entered the next stall down from
the one he’d been cleaning. He leapt for
the pitchfork he’d left leaning against the stall door. The race was on and he had no intention of
losing.
**********
Julia winced as she tossed another
pitchfork full of hay over the edge of the hayloft. She’d spent the last hour racing Jamie
through the remainder of the stalls, cleaning them out and laying new straw
down on the floors. She could feel a
tightness in her shoulders that would be real pain tomorrow and, despite the
gloves she’d carefully donned, she knew there would be blisters to testify to
her labors today.
Her lips stretched into a taut grin of
triumph at her next thought. No matter
how fast and hard Jamie had worked, she’d kept pace with him. He stood below, panting slightly from his
efforts, waiting for her to toss down the next bit of hay. He’d given in and admitted she was helping. But he still maintained she wouldn’t last out
the day. He should’ve known better than
to toss down a challenge like that.
“You’re not quittin’ on me now, are ya?”
he called up, slightly breathlessly.
“Naw,” she grinned mischievously down at
him. “Just waitin’ fer ya to catch yer
breath. Wouldn’t want to go leavin’ ya
in my dust or anythin’.”
She could hear the growl that started to
rumble in his chest at that comment, but gave him no time to properly
respond. The next pitchfork of hay
landed right on top of him. Most slid
off and ended up scattered around his feet.
But there was plenty left sticking out of his hair, his ears, his
shirt. She couldn’t help laughing at the
sight.
“You look like an indignant scarecrow,”
she gasped out between giggles at the affronted look on his face.
**********
Plop.
Another shovelful of manure landed in her wheelbarrow. There.
She smugly patted the top of the pile of horse…. leavings…. to make sure
it wouldn’t slip off the wheelbarrow and set her shovel aside.
With only a slight twinge in her legs,
she bent forward and grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow to start it on its
way to the compost pile at the far end of the big pasture. Picking up speed, she concentrated carefully
on keeping the wheelbarrow properly balanced on its one wheel and never saw
Jamie coming back from his last run to the compost pile.
The first hint she had of his presence
was when she suddenly found herself airborne, her toes stinging from the hard
as a rock foot they’d just stumbled over.
She landed with a loud Splat! as the load of manure she’d been
transporting landed with her.
Julia looked up in outrage at the loud
guffaws emitting from the man she’d thought she loved. The man who’d just deliberately tripped her
and was now laughing at her…. mucky… state!
“Might wanta watch where yer goin’,”
Jamie gasped out between rolls of laughter.
“You never know what might be in… yer…. way!”
“And
ya never know when ya might be hoist on yer on petard,” she muttered,
sinking her fingers into the muck surrounding her and suddenly letting fly with
a handful of glob. She watched with
satisfaction as it landed with a resounding thump right in the middle of his
workshirt.
“Hey!
What did ya do that fer?”
Pushing herself to her feet, Julia
glared at him. “If ya have ta ask yer
dumber than I thought.”
With all the dignity she could muster
she grabbed the now slimy handles of the wheelbarrow and picked it up to head
back to the barn.
“Ya can clean up yer own mess,” she
tossed over her shoulder at him as she left.
**********
Julia glared at Jamie through her
eyelashes as she used a mallet to pound the needle through a tough piece of
leather. Of all the chores on the ranch,
she hated mending tack the most. And
Jamie damned well knew it. That’s why he’d said it was mending day. Just to spite her. It had nothing to do with the fact it was
Tuesday.
She was a fair hand at sewing itself but
simply didn’t have the strength to finesse the needle through the leather with
just her hands. Not like he could. His hands were naught but muscle and sinew. They flexed with each push and pull of the
needle, setting the tendons into stark relief.
It was hard to imagine hands with such power in them could be so
gentle. But she’d seen it for herself,
not so long ago, when they’d been grooming the horses. He touched them with such care, caressed them
almost. She grew warm and flushed just
at the memory of how his hands had molded to the muscles of the animal’s side
and back as he brushed and curried them.
She’d desperately wished it had been her he’d been touching as the
animal’s hide had shivered in a pleasure she very much wanted to feel for
herself.
“Yer never gonna get done, ya sit there daydreamin’,”
his brusque voice interrupted her thoughts.
She flushed madly to realize she’d
gotten lost to the world while staring at his hands. A quick glance at the piles of torn bridles,
reins and saddles lying at their feet and she gulped. While she’d been staring hopelessly at his
hands, he’d finished repairing one bridle and started on another. She hadn’t even finished her first
project. At this rate she’d never keep
up with him.
**********
Buck’s eyes narrowed as he watched two
figures come out of the barn, one much shorter and slighter than the tall young
man at her side. What was Julia doing dressed in trousers? he wondered. He didn’t question it was his second eldest
daughter. She’d spent enough time with
her Aunt Lou he knew she wouldn’t think twice about wearing pants when the
occasion called for it. It just took him
by surprise that she’d decided to put herself to work in the barns. Then again, she’d do anything to spend time
with Jamie. Always had. He knew that.
Buck stiffened as the pair turned to the
Breaking Corral as they called it. That’s
where they took the green yearlings and began to train them to saddle and
bridle. Given, they began putting a
halter on the foals almost the day they were born and laying things over their
backs, weighted according to what they could handle, shortly after that to get
them ready for saddle and bridle training.
It was a much more effective method than green breaking them like they’d
done back in the Express. But it was
still too dangerous for his daughter to be involved in.
A red rage began to cloud his eyes as he
watched Jamie bring out one of the highest spirited young colts at the farm and
tie it to the post at the center of the corral while Julia stepped up to the
nervous animal’s head and began whispering to it.
How dare--
“Don’t worry,” Lou said softly, putting
a restraining hand on Buck’s upper arm.
“He won’t let any harm come to her.”
Buck looked down at her and quirked one
eyebrow in silent, sarcastic doubt. Lou
laughed lightly and patted his shoulder.
“He won’t. He’d die first, no matter how he’s tryin’ ta
hide it. He’s got it bad.”
“But--”
“Besides,” she continued, not letting
him complete his protest, “Julia’s done this plenty. She knows what she’s doing.”
“Like hell she has!” Buck practically exploded. “I never let them near the breaking until
they were 16. By then she was off ta
college.”
“Don’t fool yerself, Buck,” Lou smiled
up at him as she began to lead her mount toward the barn to unsaddle it. “All the children started breaking in the
foals by the time they were ten. Didn’t
ya ever wonder why they spend so much time in the foaling barns? Or why some of the yearlin’s seemed so easy
ta train? They are ours after all.”
Shaking her head in wonder at his
self-delusion, Lou wandered off, while Buck’s eyes turned back to watch as
Julia leaned slowly over the young equine’s back, letting it feel her entire
weight. The horse jumped slightly,
whickered in concern and turned its head to look back at Julia, but once again
calmed as she spoke to it.
Buck twitched with as many nerves as the
young horse was exhibiting, but he refused to move or take his eyes off his
daughter as she slowly inched her way into the saddle and began to teach the
animal the meanings of the various signals of reins and knee and heel.
**********
Leading the horse back to its stall,
Julia began to reward its hard work that day with a gentle brushing, crooning a
tuneless melody softly as she moved.
Jamie brought in a double ration of oats and grain for it and the horse
relaxed completely, whickering softly and nuzzling her with its soft nose.
Exhaustion etched in every fiber of her
being, she eventually stepped out of the stall and sighed as Jamie latched it
behind her.
She didn’t say anything to him, too
tired to try to trade barbs with him anymore.
Instead she began to slowly walk out of the barn toward the Big House,
thoughts of a hot bath dancing in her head.
“I was wrong.”
“What?” she asked, surprised to hear his
voice coming softly from so close behind her.
Turning her head, she found him standing mere inches from her back.
“I was wrong. Ya can keep up with me,” he admitted quietly,
reaching out to finger the strands of her silky hair that had come free of
their confinement throughout the day’s labors.
“Better’n most.”
The words seemed to cause him some sort
of pain, as if they were the last thing he wanted to, or expected to, say. But being the honest man he was, he couldn’t
lie to her.
She nodded and started to push the barn door
open when the feel of his hands on her shoulders stopped her. He pulled her slowly toward him, then reached
down and tilted her chin up with one hand so that he was staring straight into
her caramel brown eyes.
“Maybe ya ain’t changed so much after
all,” he murmured as he leaned forward, never taking his eyes off of hers,
right up until their lips met. His eyes
fluttered closed even as hers widened in surprise. The light kiss brushed across nher lips and
along her jawbone to end at the edge of her cheek and ear. “Good night,” he whispered. Then opened the barn door over her shoulder
and pushed past her out into the chilled air of the gathering evening.
A cheek splitting grin, very reminiscent
of her father’s, ate up her face as she walked away. Maybe
today had been worth it after all, she thought to herself.
“Pleased with yerself?”
Julia turned her head to the side to see
her Pa leaning against the far corner of the barn, arms crossed over his chest,
a gently teasing light in his eyes.
“We’ll see,” she muttered, turning away
from him and blushing.
Buck chuckled as he walked up to her and
grabbed her hands.
“How long’ve you been breaking horses?”
he asked in a determined voice.
Glad for the change in topic, she looked
up at him slyly through her eyelashes, trying to keep a look of innocence on
her face.
“Why do you ask?”
“Cause as yer Aunt Lou so astutely
pointed out to me, you knew what the hell you were doin’ out there taday,” he
muttered, scowling slightly.
“Awhile,” she shrugged, trying to pull
away from him. Buck tightened his hold
on her hands, determined not to let her escape until she answered his
question. The pressure pushed on one of
the blisters she’d developed and she gasped in pain.
“What?!” Buck asked, moving quickly from
gentle disciplinarian to concerned parent.
Turning her hands over, he grinned slightly. “You weren’t goin’ ta say nothin’ to him,
were ya?”
Julia again shrugged in answer and this
time he let her go when she pulled away from him. Buck shook his head as she started to walk
toward the house.
“Better have yer Ma tend them hands,
missy,” he called after her. “’Specially
if ya plan ta be back at it tomorrow.”
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