Drew (The Cowboys) (39 page)

But Marina had a new baby. Isabelle said it wasn’t fair for anybody to dump their troubles on Marina just now.

“I think you ought to start making plans for your ranch right away,” Isabelle said. “Hawk and Zeke aren’t going to stay around here forever. You’d better make use of them while you can.”

“It’ll give you something to occupy your mind,” Rose said.

Drew decided she might as well have ridden out with the men. They couldn’t have given her less sympathy and understanding.

“Looks like one of the men is coming back already,” Rose said, indicating a rider in the distance.

“I’d know Jake and the boys at any distance,” Isabelle said. “That’s a stranger.”

Drew looked up and her body went rigid. That wasn’t a stranger. It was Cole!

She jumped to her feet, her body poised for flight—or to run straight into his arms.

She was disgusted with herself to know that her first response had been joy that he had followed her, hope he still loved her, and a willingness to do anything if he would only love her again. She had always considered herself a sensible woman, not subject to the volatile and foolish emotions that afflicted the average female. She could deal with men on an equal basis.

Yet here she was acting like the silliest of females, ready to throw herself at the man who’d lied to her, betrayed her love, broken her heart. She wouldn’t be fooled again by Cole Benton. She wouldn’t! She ran into the house.

“Who is that man?” Rose asked.

“I don’t know,” Isabelle said, looking at the house and then back at the approaching horseman. “But if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was Cole Benton.”

Drew emerged from the house with a rifle.

Isabelle winked at Rose. “It’s definitely Cole Benton.”

“What are you going to do?” Rose asked Isabelle.

“Nothing.”

Drew suspected she saw Rose smile.

“If you don’t want to see him killed right before your eyes, you’ll tell him to leave,” Drew said.

“You know we always offer hospitality to strangers,” Isabelle said.

“George likes it when a stranger rides in,” Rose said. “It’s a chance to get some news.”

“He doesn’t know any news,” Drew said. “Besides, everything he says is lies.”

“Do you know him?” Isabelle asked. Her expression was blank.

“That’s Cole Benton, and you know it,” Drew said, not mincing words. “You want to meet him, fine. But you’d better pick out a burial spot. He won’t be around long enough for dinner.”

Drew lifted the rifle to her shoulder and fired a shot into the ground in front of Cole’s horse. The animal reared. Cole got him under control again and kept coming.

“Turn around,” Drew called, “or I’ll shoot you out of the saddle.”

When he kept coming, she fired two shots that sent his hat spinning into the wind. Cole acted like he didn’t even notice.

“Drew’s a spectacular shot,” Isabelle explained to Rose. “She could shoot the buttons off his shirt and not singe the material.”

“I’m relieved to know that,” Rose said. “I was thinking that young man was either a great fool or too much in love to value his own hide.”

“His own hide is all he thinks about,” Drew snapped.

She fired more shots into the ground before the horse. The animal reared again. He became so agitated, Cole dismounted, left him ground-hitched, and continued forward on foot.

Drew proceeded to riddle Cole’s clothes with bullets.

“I thought Hen was a good shot,” Rose said. “He can’t hold a candle to this child.”

“It’s a gift,” Isabelle said. “She could shoot better than the boys from the start. It used to make Luke so furious he refused to shoot against her.”

Drew felt deserted by everyone who should have cared for her. Jake and the boys were out entertaining George. Isabelle and Rose didn’t seemed to be the least concerned that the cause of all her misery was rapidly drawing near. Cole didn’t have the good sense to know he wasn’t wanted. She raised her rifle again.

“You might as well quit shooting at me,” Cole said. “I didn’t run the first time, and I’m not going to do it now.”

“She shot at you before?” Isabelle asked.

“In front of five thousand people,” Cole said. “I looked like a rag doll. She even shot the heels off my boots. Caused me to fall down in front of all those people. It was humiliating, ma’am.”

“I’m shocked she’d do such a thing,” Isabelle said. “I taught her to have better manners.”

“You also said it was okay to shoot thieves, no-good drifters, and lying coyotes,” Drew cried, anger and frustration causing her voice to rise in pitch.

“This young man looks too presentable to be any of those things,” Isabelle said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Cole said as he stopped before Isabelle. “Cole Benton at your service.”

“Nice to meet you,” Isabelle replied. “I’m Isabelle Maxwell, Drew’s mother. This is a friend of mine, Rose Randolph. Drew has told us so much about you.”

“All bad,” Drew snarled. “Now get back on your horse and get out of here. I’d hate to splatter your blood all over Isabelle’s new dress.”

“I came here to talk to you,” Cole said. “I’m not leaving until I do.”

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”

“You’re going to hear it nevertheless.”

Isabelle stood. “I think a cup of coffee would be nice right about now,” she said to Rose. “Would you like some?”

“Yes.” Rose stood.

“Don’t you dare leave me with this lying, cheating sidewinder,” Drew said.

“Please stay,” Cole said. “I’d like you both to hear what I have to say.”

Both ladies resumed their seats.

“You don’t have to remember anything he says,” Drew said. “It’ll all be lies.”

“I didn’t lie about the most important thing,” Cole said. “I love you.”

“The son of the richest man in Memphis can’t love a criminal. It wouldn’t be socially acceptable.”

“So you’re
that
Cole Benton,” Rose said. “My husband has had some business dealings with your father.”

“I hope he’s not a coiled snake, like his son,” Drew said.

“I was sent to join the Wild West Show and work my way into your confidence,” Cole said, directing his attention to Drew.

“See, he confesses to being a yellow dog.”

“But I soon knew you couldn’t be responsible for the robberies.”

“But you weren’t sure enough to tell me.”

“I couldn’t very well be an undercover agent if I told you.”

“You could have trusted me.”

“Did you trust me? As I remember, you did your best to get rid of me.”

“I knew by instinct you were rotten to the core.”

“When we were in Memphis, I tried to get my boss to take me off the case. He said I’d better stay on if I wanted to prove you were innocent, that anybody else would only be interested in proving your guilt.”

“How could they do that when I had nothing to do with the robberies?”

“Because the people behind the robberies were using you and your brothers as a cover.”

“How?” Isabelle asked.

“One of them is a woman who shoots well enough to be mistaken for Drew. The other two are men who’re always masked, but that fits in with Hawk and Zeke being so easy to identify.”

“That could be a lot of people,” Isabelle said.

“The robberies always took place within a short ride of where the Wild West Show was playing, or in a town just after it left. One took place in a bank Drew spent half a morning studying.”

“Your brother-in-law told me I ought to study the bank’s customers before I decided where to deposit my money,” Drew explained to Rose.

“That sounds exactly like something Jeff would say,” Rose said. “He doesn’t trust anybody.”

“But the last robbery took place the night we were on the steamboat,” Cole said. “That’s positive proof you didn’t do it. I was with you the whole evening.”

“Good,” Drew said. “You can tell your boss I’m innocent, and both of you can forget you ever heard of me.”

“No, I can’t,” Cole said.

“Why not?”

“Who’s going to believe me when I tell them the woman I intend to marry is innocent?”

“I’m not going to marry you!” Drew declared.

“They’ll think a husband would naturally defend his wife.”

“I should hope so,” Isabelle said. “Jake and the boys would take it very unkindly if you didn’t.”

“George and his brothers wouldn’t like it much, either,” Rose added.

“I’m not going to marry him!” Drew virtually shouted. “Nobody has to worry about anything.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Isabelle said. “That looks like Jake and the boys coming. From the way Zeke and Hawk are riding, I’d say they had blood in their eyes.”

“Good,” Drew said. “All the way home Hawk kept begging me to let him go back and cut Cole’s throat. Fool that I was, I wouldn’t let him.”

“I knew you still loved me,” Cole said.

“The hell I do!” Drew snapped. “I stopped him because I didn’t want him to hang for removing your worthless hide.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Cole drawled. “Mama is gonna love you.”

“I wouldn’t go near your mama on a bet.”

“I don’t know how well she’ll get along with your aunt, however. Mama’s family is old Memphis society.”

“My aunt is just as good as your mother. No, she’s better.”

“Of course my father is new money, but that hardly matters. If we live on your ranch, we won’t have to see them more than once a year. This is a beautiful valley. Is your land nearby?”

Drew’s temper had been stretched to the limit. Seeing Isabelle trying unsuccessfully to smother a laugh caused it to break. She marched up to Cole, shoved her rifle barrel against his chest, and pushed. “Git before I forget it’s against the law to shoot society-bred skunks.”

Cole calmly pushed the rifle barrel to one side. “This may be the way you greet lovers in Texas, but I prefer the way we do it in Memphis.”

The rotten, low-down, belly-crawling traitor took Drew into his arms and kissed her ruthlessly, right there in front of Isabelle and Rose. He didn’t even have the decency to ask them to turn their heads.

But she saved her most scathing thoughts for herself. After all the rotten things he’d done—horning in on her show, lying to her, suspecting her of being a thief,
waiting three days to follow her
—her treacherous body melted into his arms. Her lips kissed him back—
Kissed him back!
—as if they had no memory of his treachery. Worst of all, her muscles loosened their grip on her rifle, let it fall to the ground, then drew her arms around his neck. Then her heart and body combined to throw themselves into an embrace her mind screamed was a horribly blatant case of backsliding, a perfect example of a woman acting like a fool over a man, the precise reason why women hadn’t taken their rightful place in the pantheons of power.

But her heart and body didn’t give a damn about pantheons, no matter what kind they were. She was back in Cole’s arms, and that was all that counted.

Drew felt Cole being ripped from her embrace. Zeke knocked him down and Hawk pounced upon him, a knife at Cole’s throat.

“I kill him now,” Hawk said.

“I think you ought to let him up,” Isabelle said. “It’ll be awfully difficult to introduce him to Jake and George with him lying on his back in the dust.”

“I want to kill him,” Hawk pleaded.

“He says he wants to marry Drew,” Isabelle said, unable to repress a grin. “I think she ought to have first choice.”

Drew had stood there, too paralyzed to move or speak. It was abundantly clear to her—and most likely to everyone else as well—that she still loved Cole. His treachery didn’t make any difference. She wasn’t any better than the women she’d scorned for so many years. She didn’t care that her man had faults, what they were, or how many. She loved him, and that was the end of it.

Okay, she loved Cole. She couldn’t do anything about that, but she didn’t have to let that ruin her life. She would buy her ranch and throw herself into running it. She would be miserable at first, maybe forever, but she would at least have her self-respect.

But self-respect had never seemed so uninviting. Compared to the bliss of being in Cole’s arms, of his kisses, it seemed like cold sawdust.

“What was all the shooting about?” Jake asked as he and George Randolph approached the group.

“Drew was welcoming her lover,” Rose said, then burst out laughing. “I swear, she’s just like Fern.”

Drew had never met Fern, Madison Randolph’s wife, but she’d heard plenty about the Kansas tomboy, and didn’t appreciate the comparison.

“What’s this about being her lover?” Jake asked, his brow creased with a deep frown.

“He wants to marry her,” Isabelle said. “He’d just told her when you arrived.”

“What was your answer?” Jake said, turning to Drew.

“She didn’t get a chance to give one before Zeke and Hawk knocked him down,” Isabelle said.