Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(16)

In a conspiratorial hush, Johnson explained, “We’ll have drawn up new papers with falsified names prepared by the Rabbi’s office tomorrow morning.” He had an affable, bumpkin manner, but she knew better than to take a politician at face value.

Before Duke McClellan could make any further objection to his sponsorship, she said with unceremonious haste, “Make mine, my falsified name, Romy, if ye please. Romy Sonnenschein.”

“Morris – Moe – Keller mine will be,” the dwarf said with just as much haste.

“And mine, Gideon,” Gunter finished. “Gideon – uhh, Gideon Goldman.”

The cowboy was having nothing to do with the plans. “I’m telling you, Harold, I’m not pleased as punch about taking on this girl,” he said, drawing out his few edgy words so they sounded to her like ocean waves pounding and galaxies colliding.

But it was also something more, an undertone she heard. Naturally, she had to strain more than most to catch nuances and was therefore more attentive than most. But proficient as she was with languages, she could detect sound distinctions that escaped others.

The man’s cadence, his articulation, the way he rolled his r’s and made the ‘th’ sound – she would bet he purposefully slowed his voice to hide a stuttering. That gravelly rumbling of trained speech would guard him – and he most likely succeeded with all but those with the most finely attuned ears.

Or, in her case, ear.

From beneath wrinkled and droopy lids, the rabbi’s eyes turned their warmth toward her sponsor. “Give it a go, Duke. For old times’ sake.”

“I don’t have time, old times’ sake or not, to argue the case, Harold. It’s a five-hour trip back to the S&S, and I’m burning daylight.”

“And be sure to take Miss Klockner– er, Miss Sonnenschein – into Austin tomorrow,” added the rabbi, as if the cowboy had already agreed to keep her on. “Mrs. Spiegel should have a box of donated clothing suitable for her size and gender – as well as, for you two gentlemen – along with all the paperwork.”

“Be looking for another sponsor for her,” the rancher warned. “I mean it. Meanwhile, I’ve a prime Angus cow ready to birth any time now, so if you don’t mind, Harold – Congressman Johnson – we’d best be on our way.”

The Big Guy turned to her. At once, his brows jacked low. A muscle in the high stone wall that was his cheek flickered. Not good signs. “Miss Sonnenschein?”

He was already pivoting on his rundown boot heels, and she fast-peddled to catch up with him.

A hand clamped her wrist, and Gunter spun her around. “We have some catching up to do, my love. I shall be in touch.” His arms encircled her waist, and the hearty kiss he bestowed on her mouth bordered dangerously on being impudent.

Her fingertips flew to her lips. It had been so long since she had been kissed. Not since she was fourteen. Not since . . . better to not venture there.

But Gunter’s kiss, what was that all about?

§ § §

He must be off his nuts. Pure loco. Overdrawn at the memory bank.

Sure, Rabbi Hickman had bailed him out more than once. Giving him a square meal after he had run away from home as a fourteen-year-old to become a saddle tramp, trailing a cattle herd to the Galveston port.

Sure, Harold Hickman had found a better job for him aboard a tramp steamer.

And, sure, Harold had helped him to swing an improvement loan for the ranch, after he had returned from a dozen years at sea and found his old man had kicked the bucket.

Last year, Harold had even bargained for fencing supplies for the S&S from an Austin lumberyard going out of business.

But this . . . this . . . Duke glanced askance at the wretched piece of calico who sat on the far side of his battered pickup as if she were merely out for a Sunday drive, scoping out the lay of the land. Her head swiveled left to right and back again like a tennis match observer. And he already had his hands full with the fourteen-year-old Bud’s obsession with tennis.

Taking on a Jewish refugee as a cook at the rabbi’s beseeching, when old Jock’s hen-scratched serve-ups got the men by just fine – well, it was plumb crazy.

Especially when the new cook looked like Irina Klockner did – or Romy Sonnenschein – or whatever the hell her name was. Eyes too wise. A rosebud mouth too smart. And a lightly freckled face far too puckish. She would be hell on wheels at his place. Have the men riled up and randy. He had enough headaches trying to run his piece-of-shit ranch without having a sexual stampede on his hands.

Worse, when he got around to courting a wife, she would be none too pleased to find another woman had run of his home.

A home. A wife. Children.

Sure as shit, the S&S was more a ruin than a home. But he wanted to settle down. He was weary of wandering the earth’s far reaches. And his idea of a wife in no way matched the foreign floozy he was saddled with for a cook.

He wanted respectability. Something he nor his family had ever possessed, if small town gossip was anything to judge by. The small town had died off in the Depression years, but, by God, he hadn’t.

And he wanted a wife. One with his ma’s gentle spirit. Those reassuring childhood fairy tales she would read him had made family life more bearable those youthful years. His pa, already short-fused, returned from the Great War a shell-shocked tyrant and with nothing but a box of medals to show for it.