Page 7 of The Ranger

Markhel closed his eyes. This meant his time in Clear Creek was also going to hurt. A lot.

Irene let go, gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder, then left the church.

* * *

Maida Comfort dippedher feet in the cool water of the creek. She rode her horse here often and liked to pick flowers and think.

Today, however, her mind was blank, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t think of anything of interest. Maybe what she really wanted to do was dream. But of what?

Okay, she knew what, but what was the point? She was old enough to marry now, but there were no prospects in Clear Creek. None that she was interested in anyway. Besides, Pa wasn’t keen on her being courted by anyone, even if he did like what few single men there were in town.

She plucked a daisy and stuck it in her hair.

Grandpa told her she should wait a few years for a beau. Maybe then some new families would have moved to town. If none did, she wasn’t sure what she would do. She didn’t want to settle, and she also didn’t want to have to go someplace else to find a husband. Her mother and grandmother were already whispering about sending her off to the Weaver farm to work the harvest. This year a lot of her relatives went to help. Even her Aunt Savanah and Uncle Maxwell and their families went. There were young men in the area—neighbors of the Weavers, as far as she knew—that they hoped she might be interested in.

She stepped out of the water and sat on the grassy bank. The daisies in the meadow always lifted her spirits, and she loved picking them to bring home so she could put them in a vase to display in her room.

Maida sighed, closed her eyes and listened to the birds while breathing in the sweet scents of summer surrounding her. They helped her relax, and she needed to right now.

Waiting to get married wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the odd ache in her heart. It seemed to be getting worse, and she’d meant to ask Mama about it. Did she have the same ache before Pa came along? What if he hadn’t come when he did? Would she have settled for a man that wasn’t quite right for her, just to quell the pain?

Maida shivered at the thought. She didn’t want to settle. She wanted to be in love. Deeply, wonderfully, and irrevocably in love.

Maybe she’d been reading too many romance novels.

She sighed and got to her feet. She’d left her shoes near His Majesty, the huge oak tree that dominated the canyon. Her great grandmother had named the tree, and Mama was named after her. She wished she had known her grandmother. Honoria Cooke had traversed the Oregon trail from Missouri, endured hardships when she and her family settled Clear Creek, then succumbed to influenza one winter. Her grandfather Harrison, Great Grandma Honoria’s youngest son, was a young man then. He’d met Maida’s grandmother Sadie six months after Honoria passed. His brothers, Duncan and Colin had been falsely imprisoned at the time for cattle rustling, and their stepfather Jefferson, stricken with grief over Honoria’s death, took solace in whiskey for more than a few years.

But all that changed when Grandpa Harrison married Sadie Jones.

The daughter of cattle baron, Horatio Jones, Sadie came with a dowry the size of Texas. At least that’s what Grandpa Harrison liked to say. Horatio gifted the young couple with a thousand head of cattle, built them the house they still lived in, along with the barn and other outbuildings. One of Horatio’s foremen came to work for the Cookes at that time, and the rest was history. The Triple-C Ranch was the biggest in the west, and they’d grown prosperous over the years.

But her family didn’t show off their wealth. They never built another house to replace the original. Just more to accommodate the growing family. And they didn’t wear fancy clothes or jewelry. They lived a simple life and took pleasure in each other’s company and that of the people in Clear Creek.

She smiled at the thought, and scooted closer to the water so she could dip her toes in again.

She wondered how long it would be before men began writing her father, asking to come visit the ranch. She had a nickname that had begun to circulate in Oregon City and beyond. “Princess Cooke,” she muttered. “You’d think someone would have come up with something more original.”

Thankfully, she knew her father wasn’t going to let outsiders come sniff around the ranch hoping to get to know her better. Everyone knew the only reason they’d be interested was the size of her dowry.

She sighed at the thought and tried to think of something else. Unfortunately, that’s when a pang of loneliness hit, a big one, and she doubled over to quell it.

“Ouch.” She rubbed her chest with a hand and closed her eyes against the tears that threatened. She hated when this happened, but there was nothing she could do about it. The pain came out of nowhere and sometimes it hit hard.

So far, she’d been able to keep it from her parents and her grandparents, but it was getting harder to hide. Last night when a pang hit, she cried out. Thankfully no one was upstairs at the time. But if the pain got worse, she’d have to tell someone. What if there was something physically wrong with her? Should she speak to Doc Drake about it?

She got to her feet and started for His Majesty. After she put her shoes and socks on, she mounted her Appaloosa, Pip, let him drink his fill, then headed home. The gelding was used to this routine, and she let him have his head as he started across the large meadow to the trail that would take them out of the canyon.

The birds were singing, the day warm, and she reveled in the scents of summer. She loved Clear Creek and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. One more reason her parents and grandparents wouldn’t entertain offers from men willing to travel to court her. They didn’t want to see her leave.

As for her big brother—named after their great uncle Duncan—she was surprised some rancher hadn’t contacted Pa about a daughter they thought would be a good match for him. But she was the prize at the moment, and now that she’d turned eighteen, the offers would trickle in.

When she reached the ranch, she rode Pip into the barn, unsaddled him, then put him in the corral. That done, she went into the house. Her mother and grandmother would want her help with dinner. That was another thing that separated the Cookes from other wealthy cattle ranchers. They kept no servants and did all the cooking and cleaning themselves. Of course, it did have some drawbacks.

“Oh no!” Mama cried from the pantry. “Mother, I thought you bought sugar!” Maida’s mother came stomping out of the pantry, hands on hips. “You said you went to town to get some.”

Grandma Sadie gave her a sheepish look. “I got talking to Grandma and Irene and must have forgot. I got everything else I wanted though.”

Mama rolled her eyes. “You should always take a list.”