PART 2 — THE WOMAN WHO FED FORTY-ONE HUNGRY COWBOYS

Gideon Rourke stopped in the kitchen doorway, his eyes moving from the unconscious cook to Winnifred Bellamy, who was already tying an apron around her waist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Making supper.”

“You don’t know anything about this kitchen.”

Winnifred glanced at the enormous iron stove, the half-empty flour barrel, and the vegetables scattered across the counter.

“Then it’s fortunate that cooking doesn’t require knowing the kitchen. It requires knowing what hungry people need.”

One of the ranch hands standing behind Gideon coughed to hide a laugh.

Gideon didn’t find it amusing.

“Mrs. Hensley has been running this kitchen for eleven years. You think you can replace her in an afternoon?”

“No,” Winnifred answered. “I think she needs a doctor, and your men need supper. Those are two different problems.”

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Winnifred turned toward the nearest ranch hand.

“Please fetch cold water and a clean cloth. And ask someone to ride for the doctor. Quickly.”

The young man looked at Gideon.

“Go,” Gideon finally ordered.

Winnifred knelt beside the cook, checking her breathing and gently loosening the collar of her dress. The woman was conscious but terribly weak. The heat had overwhelmed her, and she needed medical attention.

Once the doctor was on his way, Winnifred stood and surveyed the kitchen.

“How many people are we feeding?”

“Forty-one men,” Gideon answered. “Plus whoever happens to be working in the barn.”

“Then we’ll need enough for forty-five.”

“You’ll never manage it.”

Winnifred looked directly at him.

“Mr. Rourke, I’ve cooked for sixty railroad workers with half these supplies. I don’t intend to let forty-one cowboys defeat me.”

She began issuing instructions.

The potatoes were peeled and cut into a large iron pot. The remaining beans went into another. She discovered two sacks of cornmeal hidden behind a stack of flour and immediately decided on skillet cornbread.

There were onions, a few carrots, dried herbs, and enough salt pork to make a proper stew.

But the pantry held another problem.

The meat was nearly gone.

Winnifred examined the shelves, then looked toward the back door.

“Do you have chickens?”

“About thirty,” Gideon replied.

“Good. Eggs?”

“Some.”

“Then we’ll manage.”

She worked without complaint, moving from stove to counter, directing the ranch hands who had gradually wandered into the kitchen.

At first, they followed her instructions reluctantly.

They had never taken orders from a woman who had arrived only three days earlier, especially one their employer had already made clear he didn’t want.

But Winnifred didn’t waste time demanding respect.

She simply knew what needed doing.

By late afternoon, the smell of simmering stew had spread throughout the house.

The ranch hands began appearing at the kitchen door.

“Something smells mighty fine,” one of them said.

“Then you can make yourself useful,” Winnifred replied, handing him a basket of potatoes. “Those need washing.”

The man blinked.

Then he grinned.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Another cowboy came in carrying fresh eggs. A third offered to split more firewood. Before long, the kitchen had become a place of unexpected cooperation.

Gideon watched from the doorway.

He had expected a disaster.

Instead, the woman he’d dismissed as another expense was organizing his entire household.

At supper, forty-one men sat down to steaming bowls of beef-and-potato stew, cornbread, and fresh eggs.

The first few minutes were unusually quiet.

Then old Samuel Briggs, the ranch’s oldest hand, took another spoonful and leaned back.

“Lord Almighty,” he said. “I haven’t eaten like this since my wife was alive.”

A younger cowboy laughed.

“Then you’d better hope Mrs. Bellamy stays.”

The table erupted in laughter.

Winnifred stood near the kitchen entrance, wiping her hands on her apron.

For the first time since arriving in Montana, someone had spoken about her presence as though it might be a blessing.

Gideon remained at the head of the table.

He tasted the stew.

It was excellent.

He hated that fact more than he cared to admit.

After supper, he found Winnifred washing the final cooking pot.

“You managed,” he said.

She didn’t turn around.

“I did.”

“Don’t mistake one successful meal for a permanent position.”

Her hands paused.

“I’m not asking for a position, Mr. Rourke. I’m asking you to stop treating me like I’ve done something wrong by arriving here.”

Gideon stared at her.

“I never promised you a happy marriage.”

“And I never asked you to love me.”

“Then what exactly do you want?”

Winnifred dried her hands.

“A chance to earn my own place. Nothing more.”

He looked at her for several seconds before leaving.

But something had changed.

The next morning, the ranch hands greeted Winnifred by name. Someone had even left a small bouquet of wildflowers beside her kitchen window.

She smiled when she saw it.

Then she noticed something troubling.

The men had eaten well, but the ranch’s food supplies were almost gone. The flour barrel was nearly empty, the meat stores were insufficient, and several bills remained unpaid.

She spent the morning examining the pantry and comparing the receipts with the quanтιтies recorded in the household ledger.

The numbers didn’t make sense.

According to the invoices, Gideon had purchased enough flour, sugar, coffee, and dried beans to feed twice as many people for an entire month.

Yet the supplies weren’t there.

She checked the delivery dates.

Three separate shipments had supposedly arrived within the last six weeks.

None had been recorded in the pantry inventory.

Winnifred frowned.

Perhaps the deliveries had been sent to another building.

She asked the stable boy, who shrugged.

“Mr. Rourke handles the deliveries, ma’am. Or at least, Mr. Pike does.”

“Mr. Pike?”

“His foreman. He’s the one who signs the papers.”

Winnifred remembered seeing a tall, narrow-faced man standing behind Gideon when she arrived.

Silas Pike.

He had barely spoken to her, but she remembered the way he had looked at her suitcase and smiled.

It hadn’t been a friendly smile.

That afternoon, Gideon entered the dining room and found Winnifred sitting with the ledger open.

“What are you doing with those accounts?”

“Trying to understand where your food has gone.”

His expression hardened.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Perhaps not. But someone has been charging you for supplies that never reached this house.”

Gideon took the ledger from her.

“Be careful what you accuse people of.”

“I’m not accusing anyone. I’m telling you the numbers don’t match.”

He examined the pages.

For the first time, he looked uncertain.

Before he could answer, the front door opened.

Silas Pike walked in carrying a leather folder.

“Gideon, we need to discuss the western pasture.”

His eyes fell on Winnifred.

Then he noticed the ledger.

A strange expression crossed his face.

“Mrs. Bellamy has been busy, I see.”

“She has,” Gideon replied.

Silas gave a thin smile.

“Perhaps she ought to concentrate on the kitchen. Ranch business can be complicated.”

Winnifred closed the ledger.

“Numbers are numbers, Mr. Pike. They don’t become complicated simply because someone doesn’t want them examined.”

The foreman’s smile disappeared.

Gideon looked between them.

“That’s enough. Both of you.”

Silas tucked his folder beneath his arm and left the room.

But Winnifred noticed something.

When he turned away, his hand тιԍнтened around the leather folder.

And she suddenly understood that the missing supplies might be only the beginning.

That evening, as she carried a basket of clean linens upstairs, she heard Gideon speaking to someone in his study.

“Three shipments missing,” he said. “And now the bank is threatening foreclosure.”

A second voice answered.

“Then you should sign the agreement before the end of the month. It’s your only chance.”

Winnifred recognized Silas Pike’s voice.

She stopped outside the door.

Then Gideon said something that made her blood run cold.

“I’m not selling my father’s land.”

Silas answered quietly.

“Then you may lose everything.”

Winnifred stepped away before they could discover her.

She had traveled two thousand miles expecting to marry a stranger.

She hadn’t expected to find a ranch on the verge of ruin.

And she certainly hadn’t expected that the man who rejected her might be fighting an enemy living under his own roof.