"Kristenson, Agatha - The Rancher's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristenson Agatha)

help to him for the summer. There was so much to do. Cole complained
that the few hands that drifted through were really no help. Somehow
she had to make it work ... and if she did ... maybe ... just maybe she
could get Cole to realize that a stranger in the house wasn't so
terrible. A little stranger.

The dinner table was laden as usual with all the good things the ranch
grew, a big stew full of beef and green peas and beans and parsley and
potatoes and carrots. Platters of icy cucumbers and red tomatoes and a
cut glass tumbler sprouting crisp green onions. Two huge pans of hot
corn bread were passed and mounds of sweet butter. Tall glasses that
held at least a pint each were full of amber iced tea to wash all the
food down. An enormous strawberry shortcake stood waiting in the
refrigerator.

The men ate with silent absorption making occasional grunting noises
and sighing a little. They wolfed the food as though it might be their
last, their faces trickling sweat despite the air conditioner. Kate
didn't mind their silence in the least; she had someone to talk with--
Gwen Carter--at the other end of the table. The two women chatted
gaily with each other and left the men to their eating.

Gwen was their new school teacher and would start teaching in the fall.
She was a sweet girl, but Kate felt she was completely out of place
here in South Dakota. As the Sutherland woman looked down the table at
her petite figure, daintily eating her food, she marveled once again at
the Dresden doll quality of the girl. Although Kate was only five
years older than the 23 year-old school teacher, she felt as if Gwen
were still a high school girl. She was perfect--in miniature!--but
like any fragile work of art, pretty unsuited for the rough life of the
plains. The girl obviously had come from a green house, sheltered
environment, and she frequently blushed when one of the ranch people
forgot about her and cursed a blue streak about something. Gwen had
said she came to South Dakota for the summer, before the school term
began, to learn about "real" people. Kate knew that if the young
teacher didn't watch her step with some of the ranchers, Sandy Gayman
the Meacham Ranch foreman especially, she might learn more about "real
people" than she had bargained for.

"Think you're going to last the summer, Gwen?" Kate asked.

"Oh, Kate, I'd never have made it this long if it weren't for you ...
but I think so ... maybe." She stopped and wiped her lips daintily with
her napkin, glancing involuntarily at the crude table manners of the
men and their rude silence. Delicate eyebrows lifted faintly in their
direction. Her blonde hair was twisted high on her head and her fair
skin was exposed by the scoop necked flowered cotton dress she wore.
Simple as it was, it was much too dressy for summer on a ranch.

Kate shook her head slightly at Gwen, glancing down the long table at