Texas Rain

CHAPTER 11

Two days later Pearl Langland called on Rainey at nine in the morning.

Rainey had planned to dress and look for a job, but she'd fallen asleep after breakfast. The night's conversations in the alley seemed the only interesting part of her life, so Rainey lost the battle that morning with sleep.

"Wake up." Pearl pounded on her door. "Rainey, if you are in there, open the door, I can't hold little Jason much longer."

Rainey pulled on her cape as a dressing gown and let in her friend. She didn't try to pretend everything was fine. Her mother's words echoed in her ears-that no respectable woman remained in her nightclothes after dawn. She held her head high and waited for Pearl to say something.

The mercantile owner's wife looked at Rainey and nodded once as if she understood. After setting the baby on the floor she said, "I've thought of a way for you to make money enough to at least pay for your room and board. Are you interested?" She hadn't come to lecture, she'd come to help.

Rainey listened even though she wanted to scream that she'd tried every way to get a job. No one wanted to give a woman, a stranger among them, employment. She'd even considered dressing as a boy and working at the stables. That might be her only choice next week when she was asked to leave the Askew House. Mrs. Vivian had made it plain that no credit would be extended.

"My Owen takes in peaches in trade sometimes from the farmers who don't have cash to pay for supplies. He says he'll make you a good deal on the peaches or anything else he takes in."

Rainey remembered the bowls of peaches on Pearl's table. "What would I do with them?"

"Pies," Pearl answered. "He swears that pie you made was the best he'd ever tasted."

"You really think I could make money baking pies?"

"I put a pen to it, and I figure even buying the sugar and flour, you can double your money if you want to turn the fruit into pies. My Owen says there's not a cafe in town that has desserts worth eating. I'd loan you my kitchen if you'd help me watch Jason while you're cooking. Owen says if I could handle the store two or three days a week, he could sell double if he agrees to make deliveries."

Rainey smiled. "You'd let me use your kitchen?"

"I'd love the company. It would be hard work on your part. Lots of peaches are coming in right now. You'd have to can all you could. Once the season is over, we'll think of something else to cook." Pearl grinned. "I'd set up your books for free samples. Making pies is something I've never got the hang of, but figures, now that's another story. To my way of thinking it would be a good deal for everyone."

Rainey tried not to shout. Hard work, honest work, didn't frighten her. Starvation did. "When do we start?" The cooks at the school had taught her how to bake almost by the time she could walk. If Pearl thought she could make pies and sell them, Rainey would make all the market would bear.

"My Owen is loading the wagon now. He'll wait until I get back to the store before he leaves." She glanced around the tiny room. "You can work all day today making samples to pass out… unless you have something else to do."

Rainey didn't answer. There was no need. Pearl knew the truth.

She stood and dressed as fast as she could, then carried Jason for Pearl as they made their way back to the little store. Within an hour Rainey was pealing peaches with Jason playing at her feet.

About one Pearl closed the store for lunch and joined Rainey in the kitchen where five pies were cooling. "I love this smell," she said as she took a bite of the potato soup Rainey had made for lunch. "Where'd you learn to cook?"

"At the school where I taught. Most of the girls had parties and outings on the weekends. My parents were usually busy entertaining prospective students and their parents. I always felt like I was in the way, so I learned to keep busy in the kitchen. The school cooks could bake anything, and over the years they passed some of their talents along to me. After the girls returned from their parties, they'd follow their noses to the table and tell me of their adventures over soup or desserts."

"You were young. Didn't you ever go with them? There must have been so much to see and do in a big city like Washington. You could have met a young man." Pearl knew little of the kind of life Rainey talked about. For her, school had been a one-room house where she'd attended when the crops were in.

Rainey shook her head. "No. It wouldn't have been proper. My father wouldn't have allowed it." She shrugged. "Look what happened at the one dance I did go to. The man I danced with thinks I'm a horse thief."

Pearl raised an eyebrow at Rainey as she rocked her baby in her arms.

"All right." Rainey shrugged. "Maybe I did borrow his horse. But I care about Travis McMurray. I'd take the animal back if I could. I'd give anything to know how he's doing. When I left he'd lost so much blood. He might even be dead for all I know. You should have seen him, Pearl. His dark hair half covering his eyes with him so still he looked more like a statue, than a man."

Pearl gently laid the sleeping Jason in his crib. "You should write your Ranger and tell him you're sorry."

"He'd come after me with a rope."

Pearl laughed. "Well, at least you'll know he's still alive."

"Right, but then I'd be dead. You should have seen his dark eyes. He didn't look like the forgiving sort of fellow, and they say Rangers are the toughest lawmen alive. No matter how gently he touched me while we were dancing, he'd probably use me as target practice if he saw me again."

"Write the man," Pearl repeated, laughing. "Owen could mail it at one of the trading post when he heads down toward San Antonio. Your Ranger will never know where the letter comes from, and you can be honest or lie. He'll never know one way or the other."

"He's not my Ranger," Rainey whispered. "But as long as he can't track the letter, I guess it would be safe enough."

Pearl smiled as if reading Rainey's mind. "If he writes back, you'll no longer have to worry."

Rainey went back to work. She'd developed a pattern to the baking. As soon as two pies were cooked, the next two were ready to go in. When the last two went in the oven, she cleaned up her mess, put on a simple stew for Owen and Pearl's supper, and tidied up the room.

By six she'd given away all her pies to cafes along Congress and Colorado avenues and even brought one home to the Askew House. The owners of the restaurants had seemed pleased at having been given something, but most made no promises to buy any. Mrs. Vivian thanked her for the pie, but informed her that dessert was not usually a part of the evening meal on weekdays.

The other borders each thanked her, and Rainey noticed they all seemed friendlier at dinner. They talked of their favorite recipes for desserts, and Rainey borrowed a few sheets of paper from Widow Davis to write them down. When she finally climbed up to her third-floor room, Rainey thought she'd fall asleep immediately, but the idea of writing Travis stayed in her mind. She told herself if she could know he was alive, she'd be satisfied.

As she lay on her back trying to sleep, the words she'd write drifted through her mind. She couldn't tell him her real name. It wouldn't be proper to mention the kiss, but the dance might be all right to write about. She couldn't talk about the way he felt against her, yet she wondered if he thought about it as much as she did. She'd never thought of herself as soft until she pressed against him, her man of oak.

Her man… she smiled. Well… he was her man for a moment. She never planned to allow a man in her life, but she could have one to dream about. That seemed harmless enough.

Frustrated, she opened the window and listened to the slices of conversations that drifted up from the alley. Too bad she couldn't tell Travis of all the faceless babble she overheard. The barmaids who complained about everything, the boss who yelled at them and then took their place on the back porch so he could smoke, the drunk who grumbled that the Lord moved the privy every night just to confuse him. Tonight two gamblers were whispering secrets of how to win, then both wished they had enough money for another drink.

Rainey closed her eyes, remembering the Ranger's face and wishing she could hear his voice once more. Maybe she would write him one letter, just to know that he was alive. It could do no harm and it might make her feel better to know that somewhere he was walking around maybe thinking of her once in a while.

The next morning she walked up Congress Avenue collecting her pie plates. Four of the cafes ordered more pies. Since Owen was home to run the store, Pearl helped Rainey set up books and figure out, once she'd paid all expenses, how much money each pie would make. It wasn't much, but Pearl had been right, if Rainey could bake three days a week, she'd be able to pay for her room at Askew House.

On her next baking day the cafes doubled their orders when she delivered, and Rainey began a pattern of baking three days a week.

Owen wandered through the kitchen from time to time. At first he seemed like a stranger among them, but Rainey didn't miss the way he looked at his wife. Pearl was plain, seeming older than her years, but when Owen talked to her, or touched her shoulder, she beamed.

Rainey had never seen a married couple act so and found it fascinating. The few married couples she'd been around hardly talked to each other. Ninety percent of everything her father had said to her mother came in the form of an order. The other ten percent had been complaints. Rainey's father seemed to think that everything wrong had somehow been his wife's fault. He blamed her for their lack of money, their living conditions, and most of all their daughter.

But Owen and Pearl were a world within themselves. They seemed happy to have their little home and both cherished their son. Owen claimed Jason had his mother's beautiful eyes, and Pearl bragged that the boy would be as smart as his father. The couple didn't mean to, but they made Rainey even more aware of how alone she truly was, not only in Texas, but in the world. She'd known from the night she'd left home that there would be no turning back. The ring she carried tucked away in a tiny bag around her neck would be her only inheritance. Her father's second wife would give him the sons he'd always complained of not having, and from the looks of their house the new wife would also spend the money her father had so carefully hidden all Rainey's life.

Unless he found her, she knew she would have to make her way without family. A good start might be to correct the wrong she'd done to the McMurrays.

That night, alone in her room, she wrote her first letter to Travis.