Read Cutty (Prairie Grooms Book 8) for Free Online Page B

today.” Before anyone could comment, she turned and left.
    Newton watched her disappear, then reached for a cookie. “I was thinking of going to Oregon City,” he announced.
    “Why?” Cutty almost spilled the tea he’d started to pour.
    “Good heavens, man!” Imogene cried. “Be careful with that, it’s hot.”
    Cutty ignored her and set the pot down. “Ya cain’t go to Oregon City!”
    “Why are you suddenly concerned about where I go?” Newton asked.
    Inspiration struck. “Nettie needs you here.”
    “Nettie doesn’t need me – she has Amon.”
    Cutty opened his mouth to speak. I need you … was on the tip of his tongue, but he held it.
    “What Cutty means is,” said Imogene, “that after you help Ryder with his house, the weather will start to turn. Nettie has never spent a winter here – she’d need all the aid she can get. Besides, it would be bad weather for traveling – to Oregon City or anywhere. It’s mid-September already. Waiting until spring would be far safer.”
    “Yeah!” Cutty put in. “That’s what I meant!”
    “I see. You do have a point. I suppose I could wait until spring, but … I just hate being idle. I need to be doing something.”
    “Ain’t buildin’ a house enough to do?” Cutty asked.
    “Yes, until it’s done,” Newton pointed out.
    “Well, what if Ryder needs help with them horses of his?” Cutty asked.
    “All two of them?” Newton asked with a smile and took a sip of tea.
    Cutty rolled his eyes. “He’s always got those mares comin’ by to be with Othello. And you know all ‘bout horses, just like he does.”
    “He did offer me some work along those lines, with pay, though it wouldn’t be much.”
    “There, ya see?” Cutty said. “Ya got yourself a job. Work for Ryder, then come spring ya’ll have six month’s worth of money to go explorin’ with.”
    “I could at that,” Newton mused. “Nettie might not mind as much then.”
    “Mind what?” Cutty asked.
    “My leaving – what else?”
     
    * * *
     
    “He can’t leave,” Cutty insisted as he walked.
    “Calm yourself, will you?” Imogene said as she strode next to him. They’d left the hotel after tea with Newton and were heading for the mercantile. “Besides, I think we convinced him not to leave until spring anyway.”
    “I know. But I still don’t like it!”
    “I don’t see why you’re so upset,” she told him. “He’s going to help with Ryder’s house, which means that the two of you will have plenty of time to get to know each other. That was your plan, wasn’t it? So what is the problem?”
    “I … well, I …”
    “For heaven’s sake, this is what you wanted!”
    “Yeah, but now that I got it, I’m gonna have to do somethin’ with it. I just ain’t sure what.”
    Imogene sighed as she shook her head. “You’re going to worry yourself to death.”
    “If’n I tell Newton who I am and he gets mad, death’s likely what I’ll get.”
    “He’ll do nothing so drastic,” she assured him. “He’s hardly the type.”
    “How do ya know? Ya don’t know no more about him than I do.”
    She stopped them both. “I don’t, do I? Even if I know very little, I still know more than you.”
    “But very little is very little. Who knows how that confounded Baron treated him and Nettie while they were young. All I know from Nettie is that neither of ‘em had it good. If’n he’s already got a lot of anger in him, what’s he gonna do after I tell ‘em who I am?”
    “Cutty,” she said as her face softened. “You don’t know what he or Nettie are going to do, and you’re not going to find out until you tell them. Have you thought about telling them separately?”
    “No … I always figured I’d tell ‘em together.”
    “Think about it. I think Nettie is the more receptive one.”
    “I was kinda countin’ on that. She can keep her brother from punching me in the face.”
    “Give the lad some credit – he is a gentleman, after all.”
    “So was