The Cactus Creek Challenge (7 page)

“You eat that, and later I’ll get you some fresh water.”

The horse ignored her—which was just fine—and shoved its nose into the feed box. Jenny sighed. One down, many to go.

By the time she’d gotten them all fed, her arms ached, and she’d learned that some of them were nicer than others. One black-and-white-spotted horse had crowded her, putting his nose between her shoulder blades and shoving her against the manger, and one droopy-eared, loose-lipped old fellow had leaned on her, pressing her into the wall as if she were a pillow for his comfort. She’d kicked and squirmed, finally kneeing him in the belly before he moved over.

In the corner stall by the toolroom, an animal that was more to her size and liking roamed freely behind a half door. Round as a dumpling and sweet as an apple fritter, the copper-colored, pint-sized mare whiffled her soft lips over Jenny’s palm, looking at her with doe eyes. Her dainty feet stirred the straw, and she blinked ridiculously long lashes. Of all the horses in the place, this little sweetheart seemed to be glad to see Jenny for reasons other than a bucket of grain.

“My, my, aren’t you a little beauty?” Jenny took a more confident breath after she bravely petted the tiny mare’s neck. “I can’t believe you’re hungry. You’re built like a puffed pastry.” Reluctantly she left the friendly little pudding and resumed what she could remember of the long to-do list Mr. Gustafson had rattled off.

Upon opening the door, she decided the tack room scared her to death. Miles of leather hung in precise loops from pegs. Sheepskin-padded spars stuck out from the wall, cradling saddles. Three pairs of enormous collars had been hung up so high, she’d need a ladder to reach them, much less get them down. The room smelled of leather and soap and oil. And was more organized than a spoon rack.

She closed the door and opened the one labeled T
OOLROOM
, sucking in a gasp and raising her eyebrows. Fascinated, she stepped inside, trying to take it all in.

The tool bench was spotless, polished to a shine that almost put her kitchen table to shame. On the wall over the work surface, every tool hung in perfect splendor, precisely aligned, none missing, none left lying around. Carl had gone so far as to paint an outline on the pegboard around each tool so he would know where everything was and could see at a glance what was out of place or missing.

Not a shaving of wood or blade of hay lay on the floor, and even the window at the far end gleamed.

None of this matched up with the impression she’d had of Carl Gustafson. His long hair and untrimmed beard, the enormous boots and thick-fingered hands, the gruff manner toward her, none of it had prepared her for such orderliness and care.

Perhaps there was more to the livery stable owner than she gave him credit for.

Carl strode up the street, guilt and frustration writhing in his middle. What kind of a man made a woman slave away in a barn all day? What were the councilmen thinking? Jenny Hart had no more business cleaning out stalls than he had crocheting doilies. He reached the front door of the bakery and stomped his boots to clear them of stable remnants before entering.

He ducked through the doorway and stopped, surveying the little room. Though he’d been in the bakery every week since the first of the year when Mrs. Hart opened the place, he hadn’t taken a lot of time to notice the layout or just how feminine it was. Before she’d turned it into a bakery, the place had been a cabinetmaker’s shop.

The interior consisted of four little tables (each with four ladder-back chairs), a long counter, and a doorway leading to the back where he assumed the kitchen lay. And lots of shelves.

Each table had a pretty glass vase of flowers and a white lace tablecloth. The windows were hung with cheerful yellow curtains with red ribbons holding them back, and bless him if each chair didn’t have a flowered calico cushion. You couldn’t get more girly than flowery cushions.

He inhaled, savoring the smells of cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar as he approached the glass cases. On the bottom row, loaves of bread—rye, sourdough, wheat, and white—stood shoulder-to-shoulder like horses in their stalls. On the middle row, pies and pastries, doughnuts and fritters, turnovers and tarts. And on the top row, cookies, muffins, and something called petit fours in all kinds of fussy colors. More cakes and pies sat on shelves behind the counter.

His mouth watered, and he had to remind himself he wasn’t there to eat, but to sell this stuff. Which shouldn’t tax him too much, considering there wasn’t one customer at the moment. He found a stool behind the counter. A little frilly stool with a curved-metal back. One that looked like it would crumble if he so much as parked a hip on it.

A flutter caught his eye. In the corner by the window hung a birdcage. Inside, a couple of parakeets hopped and twittered. He hadn’t the foggiest notion of how to care for birds, so he hoped she’d taken care of that chore. They were bright little things with black eyes like rivets and happy little whistles. He stooped to get a better look. Something about them reminded him of Mrs. Hart. Maybe it was their size or bone structure. She was as tiny as a bird, too.

More guilt smote him. What if she didn’t heed his warning about Misery and went into his pen? What if she fell climbing the ladder to the haymow? A dozen dangers hovered in any barn, and he was familiar with all of the ones in his own. He’d feel lower than a rattlesnake’s belly if something happened to her while she was playing stable master. She’d shown up dressed for church, not for slaving away among thousand-pound animals with minds of their own.

The door opened, and Doc Bucknell came in. He grinned. “Good morning, Carl. How are you settling into your new role as town baker?”

Biting back a snarl, he turned from the birdcage. “I just got here. Mrs. Hart can’t get to the livery until after she sees her little girl off to school, so I wasted half the morning waiting for her.” Well, not half the morning, since it wasn’t even nine yet, but since he usually started work before seven …

Doc seemed unconcerned. “Oh, well, that’s fine. Family first. I’m honored to be your first customer of the day. The wife sent me over with this when she heard I was checking in on all the Challenge contestants.” He patted his pockets, found what he was looking for, and handed over a slip of paper. “She and Millie finally settled on what they wanted for the wedding.”

He took the paper, opened it up, and read, “Three-tier white cake with raspberry filling, buttercream frosting with pink sugar roses.”

“The wedding?” He looked up, squinting.

“Sure. My middle daughter, Millie, is marrying Ralph Campion at the end of the month. This is the order for the wedding cake.” He leaned in and lowered his voice, though there wasn’t a blessed soul around to overhear them. “Just between you and me, the wife wasn’t too pleased this morning when she realized the Challenge will still be going on when the wedding day arrives. I had to do some tall talking to assure her you were up to the job of providing a wedding cake. I told her I had every confidence in you.”

That makes one of us
. A wedding cake? He didn’t even know what buttercream frosting was, much less how to make it. And pink sugar roses? The paper suddenly outweighed an anvil.

“For now, I’ll just take one of those crumb-topped apple pies.” The doc pointed to the glass case. “Might smooth over things with my wife if I supply the dessert for supper tonight.”

Carl fetched the pie, grateful for the little tag behind the display plate that told him what it was and how much she charged for it. The doc paid him, and he tucked the money into the painted metal box Mrs. Hart used as a till and bid farewell to his first customer.

He’d probably better get the lay of the land in the kitchen. If he was supposed to make a wedding cake by the end of the month, he’d at least need to know where the stove was. Pushing open the door to the back, he stopped cold.

Not a bare inch of table or counter space to be found. Pots, bowls, pans, spoons, tins, bags, and he didn’t know what all covered every surface.

How did she work in this chaos?

He stood with his hands on his hips, closed his mouth when he realized it was hanging open, and shook his head. Visions of his own workspace, where he put away a tool before getting another one out, came to his mind. If this was how she left her kitchen, what would his barn look like at the end of the day?

The thought made him a little queasy. Who would’ve thought that little buttoned-down, every-hair-in-place, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-sweet-little-Southern-mouth miss could be hiding such a secret?

Stepping farther into the kitchen and letting the door flop behind him, he examined the dishes piled high in the dishpan. While they were coated with batter and dough and flour and such, it all looked fresh. Nothing was crusted or moldering. That was encouraging.

Had she used every one of these just this morning? He swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair, gripping his scalp.

He’d barked at her about being late this morning, and she’d probably put in a full day’s work before the sun was even up. What a clod he was.

Lifting the corner of a tea towel, he found a row of bread pans full of dough. What was he supposed to do with that? Was it ready to bake? How could he tell? Shrugging he let the cloth fall back. Time enough to deal with that later. First, he had to clean up this mess or go mad.

By late afternoon, Jenny wanted nothing more than a cool drink and a hot bath. Her first customers had been easy enough, coming in, taking their horses that Carl boarded for them, and riding away. Friendly enough, not overly talkative, almost ignoring her.

The men who rode in about four were different. A group of eight cowboys swung off their mounts, flipping their reins over the hitching posts. A couple of them sauntered into the barn where she still wrestled with the pitchfork and wheelbarrow. “Where’s Gustafson?”

“He’s not here today, but I’m sure I can help you.” She leaned on the pitchfork and swiped her sleeve across her forehead, leaving a grimy smear on the linen. She’d gained a blister, stepped in the most indescribable excrement, and nearly broken her back with all the lifting and wheelbarrowing. Still, she was almost done.

At that moment, one of the horses cocked his tail and let drop another pile of work for her. She stifled a sigh.

One of the cowhands elbowed the other, his brows going high. They wore leather chaps and wicked-looking spurs, dust-covered from head to toe. “Well, now, we’d like that. First, tell us what a pretty little thing like you is doing in this great big barn all by yourself.”

“I’m cleaning stalls.” Wilted as a week-old wildflower, she reached for some Southern hospitality. “Did you need boarding for your horses?”

“Yes, ma’am, we were hoping to get them grained, watered, curried, and turned out in a corral so we can pick ’em up later.” He shifted his weight. “Don’t seem right having a lady do such grubby work. ’Specially a little thing like you.”

The other cowhand nodded. He darted a look at her and turned red as a rose, shoving his hands into his back pockets. The rest of the crew stood in a knot behind them.

“It’s all part of this year’s Cactus Creek Challenge. Mr. Gustafson and I have switched jobs for the month of April. I’ll tend his livery, and he’ll tend my bakery.”

“Big Carl’s working in the bakery? Talk about a buffalo in a pansy patch.” He grinned, two deep creases denting his darkly stubbled cheeks.

“What’s the word, boss? We going to howl at the moon or what? I didn’t ride all this way into town to stand here in the sun,” one of the men in the back hollered.

“I assure you, gentlemen, I can care for your animals. If you’re not pleased with the service, you don’t have to pay.” Though what Mr. Gustafson would say about that, she didn’t know.

The boss of the outfit—a man of about twenty-five maybe—lean and masculine, tugged his gloves off and tucked them under his belt, studying her. “Fair enough, but we’ll pay up front. It’ll be late when we’re ready to leave, and you won’t want to wait up for us, I’m sure.” He dug a ten-dollar bill from his pocket. “This should cover things. And you keep the change.” Turning to his men, he raised his voice. “Unstrap, boys. Hang your gear on the fence and turn your mounts into this corral.”