Josh had begun speaking, Nick had watched the conflicting emotions parading across Milly’s face—doubt, trust, fear, hope. Now, at the old cowboy’s urging, the battle was over and trust had won—trust in old Josh’s opinion, if not in Nick himself, as yet.
“Josh has never steered us wrong,” she said, smiling down at the old cowboy and then back at Nick. “So I will take you up on your very kind offer, Nicholas Brookfield, at least until Josh is back on his feet.”
He gave both of them a brilliant smile, then bowed. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m honored. I shall endeavor to be worthy of the trust you’ve placed in me.”
Milly looked touched, but Josh gave a chuckle that had him instantly wincing at the movement to his ribs. “Boy, that was a might pretty speech for what you just signed up for—a lot a’ hard work in the dust and heat.”
“I’ll be very dependent on your advice, sir.”
“I—I can’t pay you anything for the time being,” Milly said apologetically. “Just your room and board.”
“My needs are simple,” Nick said. “Room and board will be plenty.” He was only a third son of a nobleman, but he still wasn’t exactly a pauper, so he had little need of whatever sum most cowboys were paid a month beyond their keep. He would have to write to the bank in Austin that was handling his affairs and notify them that his address would be in Simpson Creek, for now.
“I suppose you could have my father’s bedroom when the doctor leaves…” Milly mused aloud.
“That won’t be necessary,” he replied quickly. “The bunkhouse will be fine for me.”
Her forehead furrowed. “But…surely you’ve never slept in such humble circumstances,” she protested. “I mean…in a bunk bed? I imagine you’re used to much better, being from England and all.”
He thought for a moment of his huge bedchamber back home in East Sussex at Greyshaw Hall, with its canopied bed and monogrammed linen sheets, and his comfortable quarters in Bombay and his native servant who had seen to his every need. Yes, he had been “used to much better,” but he had also experienced much worse.
“Miss Matthews, I told you I was a soldier until recently, and while on campaign I have slept on a camp cot and even on the ground. I assure you I will be fine in the bunkhouse. Besides, I cannot properly be a cowboy unless I sleep there, can I?” he asked lightly, knowing it had been innocence that had led her to offer him her father’s old room.
“But—”
“Miss Milly, you can’t be havin’ him sleepin’ in the same house with you two girls,” Josh pointed out, with a meaningful nod toward the kitchen, from where the sounds of conversation and the clinking of silverware against plates still floated back to them. “Once the gossips in town got wind a’ that, they’d chew your reputation to shreds.”
Nick could see that in her effort to be properly hospitable, Milly hadn’t thought of how it would look for him to stay in the house.
“He’d best sleep out in th’ bunkhouse, where the greatest danger’ll be my snorin’, once I get back on my feet,” Josh said with a wink.
“It’s decided, then,” Nick said. All at once his long night in the saddle caught up with him and before he could catch himself, he yawned.
“Good heavens, I’d forgotten how exhausted you must be, Mr. Brookfield!” Milly exclaimed. “You’ve been up all night! Go on out to the kitchen and get yourself some breakfast, like I said, while I take some sheets out to the bunkhouse and make up a bed for you,” she said, making shooing motions.
He remained where he was for a moment. “I suppose if I’m going to work for you, Miss Milly, you had better start calling me Nick,” he said, holding her gaze.
He was delighted to see he could make Milly Matthews blush—and such a charming blush it was, too, spreading upward from her lovely, slender neck to her cheeks and turning them scarlet while her eyes took on a certain sparkle. Immediately she looked away, as if she could pretend by sheer force of will that it hadn’t happened.
He saw Josh watching this little scene, too, but there was no censure in the old cowboy’s gaze, only amusement.
“You’d best hurry on out to the kitchen like Miss Milly said, Nick. The way those galoots out there eat, they’re liable not to leave you a crumb.”
Snatching up clean, folded sheets from a cedarwood chest in the hallway, Milly followed Nick. Caroline Wallace was in the kitchen, pouring coffee. She and the handful of men standing around forking scrambled eggs from their plates nodded at her or mumbled “Good morning.”
Threading her way through them, she found Sarah at the cookstove, talking to Doc Harkey.
“How’s Josh?” Sarah had taken the evening watch, but she was no night owl, and had gone to bed when Milly relieved her. But Milly was never at her best in the morning or at cooking, so she was grateful Sarah was up with the sun and feeding the hungry men.
“Awake. I can tell he’s going to make it, ’cause he’s already ornery,” Milly said with a laugh.
“I’ll go in and have a look at him,” Doc Harkey said, and waded through the throng of men toward the back hall.
Sarah looked questioningly at the armload of sheets Milly carried.
“Mr. Brookfield has very kindly offered to stay on and help us while Josh is laid up,” she said, keeping her tone low so only Sarah could hear, and nodding toward Nick. He was talking to one of the other men while spooning clumps of scrambled eggs onto his plate to join a rasher of bacon and a thick slice of bread. “I’m just going to make up a bed in the bunkhouse for him.”
“I see.” Sarah’s knowing eyes spoke volumes and she grinned. “Well, isn’t that nice of him? You have your very own knight in shining armor.”
“Yes, we do,” Milly corrected her in a quelling tone. “It is very kind of him, though he’s never done ranch chores before. But he seems to think Josh can advise him and Bobby can show him what he needs to do.”
“He seems like the kind of man who can do anything he sets his mind to,” Sarah commented. “All right, you go make up the bed, but once these fellows go home, you go on to bed.”
“Oh, I slept a little in the chair,” Milly protested. “I’ll be all right.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t enough.”
“Thanks for handling breakfast,” Milly said. “How did you ever manage?”
“The eggs were from yesterday morning, the bacon from the smokehouse. I’m sure I don’t know what we’re going to do after that. I found a few hens roosting in the trees, and that noisy rooster, but I’m sure the barn fire killed the rest of them.”
“We’ll make it with God’s help, and one day at a time,” Milly said, determined not to give way to anxiety. Only yesterday morning Sarah had been gathering eggs, while she had been planning a meeting to marry off the women in Simpson Creek. Now she had bigger problems to worry about.
“You’re right, Milly,” Sarah said, squaring her shoulders. “I guess we won’t be eating chicken for a while until the flock builds up again.”
“Or beef,” Milly said.
“We’ll have to send Bobby to look in the brush. Maybe some of the pigs made it.”
Weariness nagged at Milly’s heels by the time she finished making up the bed in the bunkhouse and trudged back across the yard. The men who’d ridden in the posse were in the process of departing, some saddling their horses, some already mounted up and waiting for the others. Caroline was riding double with her father.
At Milly’s approach, Bill Waters handed his reins to Amos Wallace and headed out to intercept her.