Softly Falling Read Online Free Page A

mound in front of her, trying to identify something familiar. “Seriously, what is it?”
    Mr. Sinclair started eating through what fifteen cents bought at the Great Wall of China. “I told you, never ask,” he replied. He pushed a brown bottle toward her. “Soy sauce?”
    Uncertain, she sprinkled it on the chop suey. Maybe if it all turned brown, she wouldn’t wonder about its origins.
    “He’s probably never seen a tall woman before,” Jack said, taking the soy sauce from her when she finished, and dousing his meal. “Don’t know why he wouldn’t think you’d be hungry too.”
    “I’ve never been convicted of being dainty,” Lily said, discarding once and for all anything she knew about polite conversation.
    Mr. Sinclair winked at her, then turned his wholehearted attention to the chop suey. He ate with some relish, so she picked up her fork and tried. Not bad; not good, either.
    “What do you think?” he asked, after a few minutes.
    “I’m pleasantly surprised,” she told him and then nodded to Mr. Li when he brought a tea cup, no saucer, and a pot. She poured fragrant green tea into the cup and felt a care or two slide from her shoulders. Papa had told her once that the English could solve any problem with tea. In his case, it wasn’t true. Still, it was tea and not to be trifled with.
    She knew she had not a single thing in common with the man seated opposite her except species and planet, but here she was, and here she would remain until she thought of something else. Lily took another bite and considered Mr. Sinclair’s one comment spoken with affection.
    “Why Bismarck?”
    He chewed, swallowed, and put down his fork. “A grandiose name for a bull, I’ll admit, but I expect great things from Bismarck.”
    Lily felt laughter welling inside her, not that bulls were objects of humor, but that this conversation was going to be unlike any she had ever been party to anywhere. Her uncle would drop dead from mortification, but she gloriously did not care.
    “Sir, what makes him so special?” she asked, pushing aside her chop suey.
    His eyes were merry, as if he knew precisely what she was thinking. “Do you seriously want to know?”
    “I believe I do.”
    “You won’t have heard of his kind before, but he is a Herferd.”
    He had a poor accent, but she knew precisely what he was saying, and she understood. “It’s Hereford, sir, and I have heard of his kind. A red cow with a white face?”
    “You got it, ma’am. How’d you know?”
    “I’m from Gloucestershire, which is hard by Hereford-shire. I have seen these cows.”
    She moved her plate of chop suey farther away, noting how his eyes followed it. Uncle, here comes another social gaffe of enormous proportions , she thought with some glee. “Mr. Sinclair, you are welcome to finish my chop suey.”
    “Not to your taste?”
    “Not really.”
    She glanced toward the beaded curtains as they rustled, and there stood Mr. Wing Li, his brow furrowed, his lower lip drooping, his eyes on her rejected plate. “Oh dear, he doesn’t take kindly to my lack of appetite,” she whispered to the foreman. “Is it a personal thing?”
    “I don’t pretend to know, ma’am,” he whispered back, his eyes on her plate too. “He scares me and he has that cleaver.”
    Lily laughed. Without a word, she pushed the plate toward him. Without a word, he forked the chop suey onto his plate and kept eating. “Hairiford, Hairiford,” he said around bites. “Sounds better than Herferd. Miss Carteret, after I won your father’s ranch, I spent my whole life savings on a bull. He resides in majestic splendor on two thousand acres of fenced land with his harem of two cows.” He put down his fork. “I am the laughingstock of the entire territory, but I have a plan.”
    His enthusiasm was undeniable. Lily sipped her tea, wondering about a man who ate chop suey, won a ranch in a card game, and gambled everything on an English hunk of beef. She had never met