Free Waltzing In Ragtime by Eileen Charbonneau

the clothesline. She felt the light hold of the ranger’s arm across her waist, still protecting, though the rest of him seemed lost in the bed’s depths, where he slept in childlike abandon. The dawning sun warmed her face and illuminated his. Olana no longer cared what he looked like underneath his beard, what life and the Klondike had done to his face. He stirred, nestled her closer.
    She had never, she realized suddenly, ever seen him asleep. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that he might miss the bed he had given up to her. She wished she’d offered it back sooner. As long as she could stay, too. Olana giggled at the audacity of the thought, not able to work up a shadow of real shame. She felt too alive.
    She slipped on her new homemade camisole and petticoat,
then left the bed without disturbing him. She found her clothes nesting happily with his, warm on the stones of the hearth.
    The covers slipped off his back. Olana winced at the raw red slashes, at the swelling around them, at the remembrance of the blood. She kissed the hard, muscled knot of his shoulder before rebundling him in flannel and furs. He needed his sleep. Then coffee. She had watched him make coffee. She was sure she could do it.
    She’d set the pot on a hearth stone when the animals grew so insistent she was sure they’d wake him. She could go out a few steps to the barn, feed them. But the thought of it kept her rooted to the wooden floor. She wanted to cry out her fear of the cold world beyond the treehouse, of the Carson brothers. Matthew would take her into his arms then, sooth her like a child. But she was not a child. Hadn’t he treated her as a woman last night? The animals’ cacophony rose higher. She slipped her moccasined feet into his boots, lifted his wide-brimmed hat from its nail, and headed out into the cold.
    The barn was as neat and spare as his treehouse. His animals gave her welcome squawks until she removed the hat, freeing her hair and showing a face different from their master’s. Farrell’s horse backed into the stall she shared with Matthew Hart’s speckled mare. The gray goose hissed at her heels.
    Olana had more luck with the chickens, once she found their grain and held it in the apron already heavy with his firearm. She sprinkled it as he and Mrs. Goddard had shown her, then checked the nests for eggs. Four, a good morning. “I’m going to learn how to make custard,” she told the hens.
    “Will it be as good as your coffee?” Matthew Hart spoke softly from the doorway, two enameled cups in his hands. She approached, inhaling the steaming warmth.
    “’Lana —”
    She laughed her skittish laugh, avoiding his eyes. “I’ll have you know my name is —”
    “Likely to get tangled in a man’s throat,” he groused.
    “Call me anything you like then,” she said softly.
    He stepped back. “You didn’t have to tend them.”
    “Yes, I did. You needed to sleep. Because of your back, I mean,” she amended, feeling herself blush. “Shall we feed the horses?”
    He led her to the grain bins, then showed her how to scoop out a bucketful and cast it into the horses’ troughs. The two mares hesitated, then began chomping.
    Matthew covered the barrel’s bin, then lifted her on top so her legs dangled like a schoolgirl’s and her eyes were level with his. His face was pale, his eyes ringed in shadow. He must eat, Olana decided. His hands took hers and rested in her lap.
    “’Lana. Last night. The things I did — I had no right.”
    “I gave you the right.”
    “Yes. But I’m older and I’m supposed —”
    “Was I too young to please you? Is that why you turned away?”
    “No. Oh love, you pleased me.”
    “I could learn to do better. I want to make you feel as glorious as I did, over and over.”
    He half smiled. “It doesn’t work that way for me. The over and over part, I mean.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m a man.”
    “How does it work?”
    He kissed into her palm. “’Lana, I