Caress of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

a cook.”
    â€œNo one, really”
    â€œWould you let me fix a meal?” she asked. “As a tryout?”
    Responding to the desperation in her voice, he conceded, “Maybe just this once.”
    Tomorrow she’d have to go. Yet her eyes, those guileless eyes, haunted him. A man ought to protect all that innocence. She was innocent–and vulnerable and desperate. She might be lacking in judgment, stealing her brother’s effects and taking off after a pack of men, but Matthias had told him she was a lady, and Gil decided against all reason and judgment that Matthias hadn’t lied.
    Lisette Keller was a lady.
    A lady in need of rescue.
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    â€œGirl, ye be born to a chuck wagon,” Oscar Yates announced a few minutes after he’d begun to show Lisette around the domain he was eager to abandon.
    While his words sounded nice, supper had yet to be started. Thus his praise was premature at best. Looking about, Lisette saw shovels and axes, ammunition and firearms, plus a huge pile of bedrolls. The wagon had but one entrance, up by the spring seat. Directly behind the seat, in a corner, was an upright wooden trunk.
    After stepping over those bedrolls, the conscripted cook led his prospective replacement outside, to the rear of the wagon. Cowboys not guarding the herd waited for another supper. Six men, sitting cross-legged, circled the fire trench while Yates rambled on. They were a youthful group. Even the whiskered cookie seemed more spry than his years. Lisette guessed he was sixty or more.
    Matthias Gruene wasn’t among the group; she supposed he was on night patrol. Although she knew Jakob Lindemann and Ernst Dietert through church, she wasn’t close to either, and she’d be glad when Matthias appeared. Maybe she could talk him into having a word on her behalf with the absent Gil McLoughlin.
    â€œThis here’s where ye do most o’ yer work,” Yates explained, calling her attention to the drop-leaf table. “Ye’ll find ever’thing in easy reach, girl. This wagon has nearabouts all the conven’nces of a real kitchen. Now, the cap’n, he’s gone to a lotta expense, he has, to stock it right nice. Cowboys be grateful for that sorta respect. And we got ever’ kinda staple a good doughboy–’scuse me, girl, I mean cook–could want. Ye won’t need a durned thing.”
    Except for the job.
    Yates had told her to call him by his given name, so she replied, “Thank you, Oscar.”
    With bowlegged strides, Yates went over to the youngest of the group, Willie Gaines. “Nighthawk, she be ready to fix us a tasty meal, so ye need to dig another fire pit.”
    Jakob Lindemann scratched his armpit. “What does she need with another fire?”
    â€œYe dimwit, for extry cooking pans.”
    Lindemann nodded, and Willie set to digging.
    â€œFraulein, do you know how to make son-of-a-bitch stew?” asked Lindemann.
    â€œGawddammit, Lindyman, watch yer lang’ge.” Yates rushed over to thump the man’s head. “I ain’t havin’ ye yammerin’ nasty to the lady.” He flushed beneath his whiskered face. “Pardon me, girl, I didn’t mean to take the Lawd’s name in vain.”
    â€œI don’t expect special treatment because I’m a woman.”
    â€œWelp, I be glad o’ that, ’cause me and the boys ’re about beyond redem’tion.” Yates returned to the tour. “Ain’t amiss for no medicines, neither, girl. Quineen. Turpinteen. Here be calomel–case one o’ the boys gets stopped up–and this here’s horse linnymint.” He whispered, “We got snakebite medicine, but the boys ain’t supposed to have it less’n they gets bit.”
    â€œHe’s talking about Scotch whisky,” Johns–not John, she’d quickly learned–Clark explained while snickering.
    â€œAw, shut up.” Yates shook a