The ranch looked large. She hadn't expected that. A main house, two barns, outuildings, a bunk house, all of it weathered and functional the way working places are, without any of the prettiness people add when they have time for it. Cattle she could hear but not see. The smell of hay and manure and woodmoke.
She stood at the gate for a long moment because no one came out. Then she picked up her suitcase and walked to the front door and knocked. Nothing. She knocked again harder. The door opened.
Gideon Rusk was not what she had imagined from Mrs. Farwell's brief description. She had imagined someone rough hune, perhaps loud, perhaps the kind of man who treated hired help the way he treated livestock. What she got instead was a tall, solidly built man of about 38 with a weathered face, and very dark eyes that assessed her the way you'd assess a fence for weak points, quickly, systematically, without warmth or hostility, just evaluation. He looked at her suitcase.
He looked at her face. "You're the cook," he said. It wasn't a question, so she didn't treat it like one. Rosalie Hartwell, Mrs. Farwells in Agency Cheyenne.
He stepped back from the door. Not exactly an invitation, but not a refusal either. She walked in. The house was large enough that it should have felt warmer than it did. The entry was dark.
The lamp on the wall turned low. Through a doorway, she could see the kitchen. She could see the pantry door from where she stood, hanging slightly open. Her cook's eye went there automatically, the way a carpenter looks at joints. What she could see from the entry already told her something she was not going to say out loud on her first 30 seconds in the house.
Gideon Rusk crossed his arms and looked at her with that same flat assessing look. I'll tell you how this works, he said. All right. You cook three meals a day for me and and eight ranch hands. Sometimes fewer, sometimes more.
You keep the house. You look after my boys when they're not in school, which most days because the school's been closed since October. You handle the kitchen stores. He paused. I don't need conversation.
I don't need someone trying to fix things that aren't broke. I've had enough of that. Rosalie nodded. What happened to the last cook? Something shifted in his face.