Faye Favors a Foreman: A Historical Western Romance (Brides with Grit Book 11) Read online

  Faye Favors a Foreman

  Brides with Grit Series, Book 11

  Copyright © 2018 by Linda K. Hubalek

  Published by Butterfield Books Inc.

  Printed Book ISBN—978-1987759372

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904490

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the retailer and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Except for the history of Kansas mentioned in the book, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A sweet historical romance set in 1873.

  Faye Longoria arrived unannounced at her step-uncle’s Cross C Ranch, using cash she stole from…a, uh “customer” to buy her train ticket. All Faye brought with her, was her three-month-old baby and extra diapers.

  Confusion erupts because Faye looks like a twin to Sarah Brenner, who lives on the ranch. Turns out they are half-sisters and the two clash with jealousy and stubbornness when Faye has to live with her sister and help take care of her sister’s newly adopted eight children, which includes triplet newborns.

  Rusty Tucker, the foreman of the Cross C Ranch, likes the spunk of the young woman who grew up in a brothel, and he becomes attached to Violet, her baby girl.

  Faye sets her sights on the foreman because she wants to move out of the ranch house and into Rusty’s cabin. Rusty wants a role in raising baby Violet, too.

  Will Faye’s and Rusty’s goals mesh into love and a happy family of three?

  Chapter 1

  Late Summer 1873

  Cross C Ranch, Clear Creek, Kansas

  Rusty Tucker, the foreman of the Cross C Ranch, watched from the entrance of the ranch’s stone barn as a wagon and two riders pulled up to the massive ranch house. Built by his employer, Isaac Connely in ’68, the rich man hadn’t spared any expenses on the buildings or the Longhorn cattle herd which grazed on thousands of acres of native prairie.

  Rusty had been here at the beginning of the ranch because as a young man, he’d worked with Isaac during the Civil War. Rusty had been a scout and Isaac was a sharpshooter, working together to find Confederate troops.

  After the war, Isaac sold his family’s business in Illinois to follow his friends, Moses and Cate Wilerson, and their children, Adam, Jacob, Noah, and Sarah, to Kansas. When Isaac asked if Rusty wanted to work for him, Rusty had readily accepted, not wanting to go back to his family in Missouri.

  The ranch had flourished and had been a quiet place until a month ago. Then Isaac’s nephew, Marcus Brenner, married Sarah Wilerson, and they, in turn, moved into the ranch house with eight orphaned children. Cate, who had been widowed four years ago, moved in to help Sarah, and the huge house was filled to capacity.

  Rusty walked across the ranch yard to take care of the horses for the visitors and noted who they were.

  Marshal Adam Wilerson was driving the wagon with his sister, Sarah, sitting beside him. Adam’s brothers, Noah and Jacob, silently rode their saddle horses on either side of the wagon. Was something wrong? All three men looked as if they were ready to pull the guns from their holsters and shoot someone.

  Isaac and Cate had been on the house porch and noted the group’s arrival. Oh gosh, Isaac had been on bended knee in front of Cate. Had the group’s arrival disrupted Isaac’s planned marriage proposal to Cate?

  Rusty stopped short by the group when the woman, who wasn’t Sarah after all, called out to Connely.

  “Well hello, Uncle Isaac, aren’t you gonna welcome me to your home?”

  Who was this woman? She was a match to Sarah with her almost black hair and blue eyes, but she couldn’t be a Wilerson cousin because then Isaac wouldn’t be her uncle.

  “I know you haven’t seen me since...oh I’d say when I was about ten years old,” she replied sweetly to Isaac.

  “Faye!?” Isaac gasped in disbelief.

  “You guessed right! Since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d come to visit,” Faye’s voice dripped with honey, but Rusty guessed it wasn’t sincere.

  “Why are you here? Does your grandmother know you’re not at the boarding school?” Isaac asked as the rest of the group stood silently in shock.

  “You’re bein’ a poor host, Uncle. How about making introductions and inviting me in?”

  Isaac sighed, but continued “You’ve met the Wilerson brothers.” He turned to take Cate’s hand to pull her out of the porch swing, but she ignored his offer. “Cate, this is my step-brother’s daughter, Faye Longoria. Faye, this is Cate Wilerson, the mother of the men who brought you here.”

  Rusty looked at Cate and saw shock and fear in her eyes as she stared at the young woman.

  “What’s wrong, Cate?” was all Isaac got out before Cate shoved out of the swing and ran through the front door, slamming it behind her.

  Isaac turned to look at the brothers for a clue about their mother’s behavior. They looked ready to hang Isaac from the ranch yard’s cottonwood tree, using the ranch kids’ swing as his noose rope.

  The silence was broken with a baby’s pitiful cry, coming from the back of the wagon.

  Adam turned to stare at Faye, but she ignored him and the fussing baby.

  “Oh, I forgot, Uncle. I brought you a present,” Faye’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Isaac, what happened?” Sarah called as she stepped out on the porch, “Why’s Momma so upset?”

  Rusty watched Sarah look at Isaac, then to the wagon occupants. Isaac barely caught her under her arms as she stumbled. Rusty couldn’t imagine the shock of seeing one’s face on another person.

  “Why didn’t someone tell me I had a twin?!” shrieked Faye. Then she started laughing like it was a joke. “So, father’s ‘harlot’ had twins and you kept one, Uncle?”

  The baby whimpered louder, and Faye rolled her eyes but didn’t look back at it. “That thing is so annoying,” Faye scoffed.

  “You have a baby in the back who you’re ignoring?!” Sarah pushed Isaac’s hand away, stiffened her spine, marched down the steps and pushed Jacob’s horse, Duncan, out of the way when Jacob didn’t rein him away fast enough.

  Before anyone could react, Sarah looked over the wagon side and tried to reach a box which must have been tucked under the wagon seat. She stared at Faye, who did nothing but stare back. “Pick up that child and comfort it, or get out of my way,” Sarah said to Faye through gritted teeth.

  “You can have it,” Faye stated as she rolled her eyes.

  Sarah reached up and tried to yank Faye off the seat, which caused Faye to scream and slap at Sarah. Jacob jumped off his horse to grab Sarah while Adam tried to keep the surprised horse team from bolting. Rusty ran into the ruckus to grab the team’s bridles to keep them from running away.

  “That’s enough!” roared Isaac and pointed a stiff arm toward the house. “Faye, pick up that baby and get in the house. You too, Sarah and Adam. Rusty, Jacob, and Noah put the horses in the barn and join us. We’ve got some serious talking to do.”

  In the years Rusty had worked for Isa
ac, he’d never seen Isaac this mad. Who was this woman who looked like Sarah Wilerson Brenner, and why were Cate and Isaac so upset?

  Rusty walked into the parlor with Jacob and Noah, noting the stance of the people already in the room. Sarah, and her husband, Marcus, stood by the settee, staring at Faye across the room as she held her baby like a sack of potatoes against her hip. Cate and Isaac made a third triangle facing the other two.

  “I’m sorry, Ma, but after seeing Miss Longoria at the train depot, I felt I had to tell Adam and Noah and bring them along,” Jacob confessed. “Do you want us to leave so you can talk to Sarah alone, or do you want us to stay?”

  Rusty looked at Sarah, who looked upset and furious at the same time. Did Sarah know this Faye and didn’t like her, or was she upset by the way Faye was handling her baby? Sarah had turned into a momma bear with her new family.

  Rusty noticed both the new mother and infant hadn’t had enough to eat. The very low neckline on Faye’s soiled red satin gown revealed her bony collarbone. Anyone within ten feet of the baby knew it needed its diaper changed, plus it didn’t have a shirt on its thin torso. Even though the infant looked to be only a month or two old by its weight, it had to be at least three months old by the way it was trying to hold its head up. Rusty had ten siblings, eight younger than himself, so he’d helped take care of babies growing up.

  Cate looked up at those standing around the room and cleared her throat, about three times, before beginning to speak “I only want to say this once, so everyone, please stay until everything has been said. And no questions until I’m done.

  “Faye, how old are you?” Cate asked Faye, who was clearly trying to act defiant when she was clearly shaking in her worn-out shoes.

  “Uh, eighteen, why?” Faye answered, looking confused as to why that had anything to do with what Cate was trying to say.

  “Sarah is twenty-one, so this happened before you were born, Faye.” Cate wiped tears from her face.

  What was wrong here?

  Cate cleared her throat and looked at Sarah.

  “Sarah, one day when your father wasn’t home, a man forced his way into our house. He was drunk, belligerent, and I was scared he’d hurt your brothers, who were quite young. I sent the boys out to look for some new kittens, which I don’t think we had at the time and told them not to come back to the house until they found them.

  “The man attacked me but left before the boys came back into the house because they had been out a long time looking for those kittens.” Cate squeezed her eyes tight, probably trying to forget the memory of that day.

  “Sarah, we always considered Moses, your father—and I always will—because he raised and loved you until his dying day.” She took a long breath before continuing. “But after meeting Faye, I’m guessing you two have the same father, as it was Felix Longoria who attacked me that day.”

  Oh. My. Word. There was complete silence in the parlor as everyone absorbed the story.

  “My stepbrother attacked you? Why didn’t you tell me, Cate!” Isaac hissed as he staggered back against the wall.

  Sarah collapsed on the settee, covered her face with her hands, and started rocking back and forth, sobbing uncontrollably. Marcus sat down beside his wife, pulling Sarah to his chest as she cried.

  Faye’s bravado vanished when she realized how Cate’s story affected her. “I have a sister? You mean she’s been living in this rich house, while I’ve been living upstairs in saloons?!”

  Isaac rounded on her, pointing his finger and shouting, “What do you mean living in saloons?! I sent plenty of money to your grandmother, so you could have a nice life—even though I didn’t have to!”

  “Why not? My grandmother was married to your father...”

  “For thirteen days before he died, and besides that, her name was not listed in his will! Your parents should have raised and provided for you instead of me!”

  Everyone watched in shock as the two faced each other.

  “I never got a cent of that money—if you sent it to grandmother! She tossed me back into the house my mother ‘worked in’ right after you left Illinois!”

  Isaac’s face turned ashen as the girl’s words penetrated his anger. “You mean to tell me you’ve been living in brothels the past eight years?”

  “Look at me! Do I look like a prim debutante, schooled in one of best finishing schools? Then my mother left one night without telling me where she was going, and I’ve been working on my back for the past four years to survive!” Faye wailed in exasperation.

  Cate sniffed back her grief and quietly said, “It’s good you came to Kansas to get out of your bad situation then. How did you know where to find your uncle?”

  Faye stared at the floor, not looking at Cate when she answered. “I’ve always kept the first letter he sent to Illinois, telling us where he settled in Kansas.”

  “Why did you come now, and how’d you get the money for the train ticket?”

  Tears trickled from the poor girl’s eyes as she looked up at Cate. “The um, ‘house’ owner was going to take my baby away from me, so I stole money from one of my customers’ wallets while he was sleeping after we...uh…and I grabbed my baby where she was stashed for the night and took off.”

  Cate walked closer to the girl but didn’t touch her, afraid she’d bolt like a scared rabbit. “Do you know where your father is now?” Rusty saw Sarah sit up to hear Faye’s answer.

  “No. I saw him now and then when I first lived with my grandma, but I haven’t seen him in years,” Faye said looking first at Cate, then Isaac.

  “Isaac, when’s the last time you saw or heard from your stepbrother?” Cate asked him, but Isaac shook his head as if he didn’t want to say.

  “Where is he, Isaac? I want to know where my father is,” Sarah glared at him with her swollen red eyes.

  Isaac looked at the floor when he softly said, “Last I knew, he was in prison for a robbery and waiting for his sentence, which was probably to hang.”

  “My papa's…dead?” Faye sounded like a young girl who just lost her father.

  Cate walked forward and wrapped her arms around Faye, holding her tight while the young woman sobbed for the loss of her father.

  Sarah stood, staring hard at her mother for giving comfort to this intruder, before running out of the living room and up the stairs. Marcus sighed and followed her. It was going to be a rough night for the couple.

  Rusty slipped out through the parlor door, knowing the family needed to talk among themselves about Cate’s revelation. Cate and Sarah’s worlds had just been shattered by the arrival of a half-sister neither knew existed.

  Isaac felt responsible for the mess even though he hadn’t known what all had happened to everyone.

  And then there was Faye Longoria. A desperate young woman with a baby, trying to escape her terrible life. Rusty felt the urge to help her, even though he now knew of her past.

  Chapter 2

  “Faye, please sit down at the table and eat while the food is hot,” Cate told Faye as she made her way to the kitchen this morning.

  This ranch house was twice as large as her grandmother’s mansion, or she should say, Isaac’s childhood home since it was the Connely estate before her grandmother married Isaac’s father.

  Besides the parlor, living room, library, office, dining room, and kitchen downstairs, there were eight bedrooms upstairs. Eight. And they all seemed occupied now. Faye didn’t know if she got the last room available or if Cate moved some children together.

  Both Cate and Sarah looked bone-tired and red-eyed this morning, but they were working in the kitchen anyway, feeding the menagerie of young children and babies lying in baskets, sitting in high chairs, or kneeling on chairs around the kitchen table. Good heavens there were eight of them!

  Last night Faye had slept the best since…she could remember. The bed linens were clean and smelled like sunshine, and no man pawed at her clothes. Faye was used to being awake at night and sleeping during the day, but
the exhaustion of the trip and the safety of this house made her sleep until the baby tucked beside her started to cry.

  “Sarah, please introduce your sister to your children,” Cate asked.

  Sarah sighed but did as Cate suggested, even though she wouldn’t look at her. “Faye, Marcus and I adopted eight children. Maggie is six, Marty is four, and Maisie is two. The triplets are a month old and named Matthew, Mark, and Micah. They are all from one family.”

  Sarah continued explaining her children’s past. “Molly is five and her brother…Moses…is three. They were orphaned during an Indian raid in western Kansas where Marcus was injured. They joined our family a week ago, at Marcus’ and my wedding.”

  “Oh, my word. And I thought I had problems taking care of only my baby. ‘Course I was working, too,” Faye snipped back, although she couldn’t imagine taking care of eight young children anyway.

  “Believe me when I say taking care of five lively children under the age of six, and three newborns are more than a full-time job,” Sarah evenly said back to Faye.

  “What’s your baby’s name?” The six-year-old Maggie asked looking across the table at Faye while stuffing another spoonful of scrambled eggs into her mouth.

  “Ah, I just call her ‘Baby,’” Faye blushed, grateful that Cate handed her a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. When had she last eaten this much at a meal?

  “That’s not a name,” Maggie declared.

  “Maggie, please don’t be rude,” corrected Sarah.

  “Can I name it?” Maggie continued with her mouth full of food.

  “No, I want to!” Marty had to jump into the conversation while banging his feet against the chair legs.

  “Bet your day is never dull or quiet,” Faye said under her breath as she glanced at Sarah.

  “Betty!” Maggie shouted.

  “No, Benny!” Marty barked louder than his sister.

  “Children, please don’t shout,” Sarah automatically said, as if she’d been saying it a lot in the past month.