The Lover (3 page)

“So?”

“So you stay out of my business, Mrs. Copeland, or bust somebody else out of some other jail to take your cattle up the trail. Understand me?”

That was a yes or no question, as far as he could see, but Susanna, naturally, had to argue with it.

“When I said that, what I meant was that you're to use your own judgment in decisions having to do with the
trail.
Where to cross rivers, where to camp, when to stop for the night, what tolls to pay and about outlaws and wolves and cattle rustlers and—”

“You'd be telling me what to do about every one of those things, Susanna.”

She whirled on her heel and marched away with her spine straight as a board.

Now he had really made her mad. Maybe she'd fire him.

He sincerely hoped that she would.

He caught up with her. “And I would not be hearing you,” he said, close into her ear. “I have free rein or I'm gone.”

She didn't answer.

“Thank God, I'm not going to take you up the trail,” he said. “I first thought your company would be amusing but I was wrong. I swear a thousand miles of this and I'd either gag and tie you and throw you in the back of the wagon or I'd shoot myself.”

The stricken look on her face when she whirled around made him wish he could take back the words.

But not for long. The shock that paled her skin turned to flaming fury.

“Don't even think it,” she said. “I'm going.”

“Women don't go up the trail,” he said.

“This woman does.”

She set her jaw and looked at him with even more hot determination in her eyes. It was a pure, unwavering force.

So. Laying down the law to her—which she constantly inspired him to do—was not the way to get her cooperation.

He would have to think of another way.

His head throbbing, he turned and walked away from her. All the way across the room to
the saddle racks, he encouraged himself.

You're not a stupid man, Sixkiller. You've wrapped a hundred women, maybe more, around your little finger. You can get any woman to do anything you want if you have a little time with her.

If he could just be strong enough to survive a little more time with Miss Susanna.

He tried to rest his mind while he picked out a saddle and a set of saddlebags, plus a leather-covered canteen, and went to the counter to pay, yet he barely knew what he was buying because his thoughts were swarming around her so busily.

Now he wouldn't be able to talk to her or charm her or try to convince her to stay home because he'd blurted out such a clumsy ultimatum about the trail. Not a smart move.

That was another thing she did to him. She roused his temper as fast as another man would and made him forget all about treating her like a woman.

Yet he was still thinking about the fact that she was a widow. How could he even care? He could never consider even a passing dalliance with her for fear of losing his mind entirely.

When he took his money out of his pocket, his eye fell on a stack of ladies' riding gloves. He glanced over his shoulder.

Susanna was busy looking at the sets of harness and lines, her straight, stubborn—but shapely—back firmly turned to him.

He picked up a pair of the gloves and added them to the saddle.

“Wrap 'em up and put 'em in the saddle bag,” he said to the proprietor.

Now there was an idea. Gifts usually melted a lady's heart. He would save this one until a crucial moment.

But it wouldn't be enough. Susanna Copeland was the kind who had to make her own decisions. Or think that she was.

He'd have to have another tactic, too. Then, when he went up the trail with her cattle and left her at home, he could give her the gloves as a farewell gesture to prove there were no hard feelings between them.

That plan made him feel some better. He was about to get a handle on this deal now. He had to. If he didn't succeed in taking only her herd north and leaving her behind, it would be about the same as sitting on the hurricane deck of a bronc for three months.

Although, if he did succeed in that, he and she would, no doubt, have a devil of a time even coming to an agreeable accounting in the fall. Envisioning that scene made him grin a little. He would bring her a pretty gift from Abilene, too, and that would make her smile that gorgeous smile again.

Suddenly his natural optimism came surging to the fore. Why was he worried, anyhow? With
any luck, they'd not even be able to agree on the count of the cattle or the branding and she'd lose her temper and fire him and he'd be free as soon as tonight. That would definitely be for the best.

Definitely. He usually got what he wanted. He could make that happen.

Passionate or not, beautiful or not, he already knew Susanna Copeland was far more trouble than she was worth.

 

As soon as they were horseback and riding out of town, Eagle Jack started his campaign.

“On the trail, you'll have to have much better equipment,” he said. “That bridle you're using isn't safe.”

He hated to say something like that to her when he knew she had no money to buy another one, but this was war.

And it was for a good cause. He was trying to make her stay home for her own good, not just to preserve his sanity.

Susanna glanced at her bridle with its double-tied knot holding the broken headstall together, then she looked at him.

“I'll be driving the wagon,” she said. Then she added, “I haven't hired a cook.”

He felt a leap of elation.

“Hmm. In that case, I'd say you'd best recon
sider this whole deal, Susanna,” he said.

His voice came out in such a thoughtful tone he felt he really should stroke his beard, if he had one. This was the way to do it. Hold his head and his temper and talk her into seeing things his way.

She tilted her flat-brimmed hat so she could see him better and looked at him some more.

“Oh?”

“It's too late now to get anybody who could cook a meal fit to eat,” he said. “There must be a half million head of cattle going up the trail this year and even though it's early in the season yet, the decent cooks have been spoken for since last year.”

“So,” she said, “it's too late to hire someone?”

Her calm, conversational tone heartened him. She was going to come around to his way of thinking. Women always did, didn't they? He shouldn't have worried so much. He shouldn't have doubted his own powers.

He shook his head sorrowfully.

“I'm afraid so, Susanna,” he said.

“Are you thinking that I'll have to give up the idea of the drive because of it?”

This was a dangerous question. The wrong response could put her right back into her stubborn, not-to-be-reasoned-with mood. He was doing so well, he mustn't let that happen.

He shrugged. “Well, that's your decision, of course, but you're a shrewd businesswoman…”

She pulled back and raised her eyebrows at him in a silent question.

“…or you wouldn't have picked me there at the jail,” he said. “And you know as well as I do that the one reason a cowboy can honorably quit a herd on the trail is bad food.”

They looked at each other.

The horses trotted side-by-side.

“I know,” Susanna said, with a little chuckle in her tone, “don't let it bring you to tears, Eagle Jack.”

He sent her a sharp glance. Was she not buying his act after all?

“You're pretty shrewd, yourself,” she said.

He tried to read her face but couldn't.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Oh, just a general impression. You know that those young men might steal my cattle. You know that drovers have to have good food or they'll leave a herd.” She shrugged and then gave him a full-blown grin full of mischief. “So you're bound to know that you were the only man in that jail with sense enough to come in out of the rain. Really, Eagle Jack, just as you remarked to me once before, I had no choice.”

He didn't quite know how to take that.

“So what's the point you're making here, Susanna?”

“That my choosing you is no proof of anything but my desperation. I may not be half as shrewd as you seem to think.”

“But, then again, you may be even shrewder,” he said.

They looked at each other, taking each other's measure.

“That is always a distinct possibility,” she said.

He grinned back at her. Riding with her might turn out to be quite an amusement, after all.

And she certainly was easy to look at.

Scary thoughts, both of them. Firmly, he put them away and tried to regroup.

“Susanna, are you planning to do the cooking yourself?”

Her blue eyes still twinkled at him.

“Yes. Unless you want to do it?”

His anger stirred again, despite his bemusement. She was making fun of him, that was all there was to it, and doing it to avoid the truth. He was going to make her face it.

“Have you ever cooked for eight or ten men three times a day? On the ground? With cattle chips instead of wood?”

“No,” she said, holding her gaze steady. “But that doesn't mean I can't do it.”

He sighed.

“Susanna, you're living in a dream world.”

“I'm going to be famous as a trail cook,” she said. “All the other herds will hear about our food
and make up excuses to drop by our camp.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I'm taking lots of dried fruit to make pies and when I can, I'm going to have an oven in the ground and, above ground or not, I can make biscuits and bread and bear sign. I already have my sourdough working.”

Eagle Jack got a sinking feeling deep in his stomach. This was not going to be easy. She had her mind and her heart set.

He clenched his jaw and then unclenched it, willed his voice to be calm.

“What the men need isn't so much sweets as good, solid meals to stick to their ribs. Beef cooked where it's not tough and…”

“And vegetables and fruit,” she said. “I can recognize every edible plant on the trail. We'll have poke salad and wild onions and I'll look for wild plums and blackberries.”

She gave him a quick look that seemed completely sincere.

“I'll help you look for your stolen horse, too, Eagle Jack,” she said. “When I drive my wagon on ahead of the herd so I can have more time to prepare the food.”

Eagle Jack wanted to put his head in his hands.

Dear Lord, preserve him.

That was all he needed: to worry about protecting her while she was out alone, racing ahead
to dig an oven in the ground to make a pie.

Why,
why
hadn't he simply harangued the sheriff until he let him out? Barring that, why hadn't he just served his time?

D
uring the entire ride out to the ranch, Susanna alternated between trying to read Eagle Jack's mind to gauge her success and silently berating herself for even caring whether she had begun to change his attitude about her going up the trail. She didn't have to persuade him, she didn't have to talk him into being happy about it.

He
had
to take her to Abilene. That was the deal they had made.

But it had been fun, teasing with him that way. It seemed a long, long time since anything had been fun—at least anything involving another person of approximately her own age, not to mention a handsome man.

She'd had fun, very exciting, scary fun, trying to ride through the brush without getting knocked off her horse and rope the mavericks that
had drifted onto her ranch. Including the cattle that had belonged to her and Everett but had gone completely wild in the five years he'd been dead.

Only Maynell's taciturn husband, old Jimbo, had been with her for that fun, though, and they hadn't exactly traded witticisms and grins and twinklings of the eye as she'd done with Eagle Jack. Their conversation had been more like grunts of surprise when they finally caught some wild-as-a-buck cow and sighs of relief when the time came to go to the house.

And after all of that sweat and blood and agony, they had gathered only a couple dozen head of cattle and put them in the one small pasture that still had its fences standing. Then came that beautiful, rainy day when she'd found the money Everett had hidden under the hearthstone before he went off to the war.

He had hidden it from her. That was the thought that sent a cold shiver through her when she'd noticed the edge of the stone was raised a little and realized something was beneath it, holding it up. He hadn't cared if she starved to death or if the livestock did, too, while five gold coins lay in hiding within her reach, waiting for his return.

That was customary behavior for Everett. Well, it served him right that she'd found it. She had never dreamed they had that much cash money.

Not enough to make up for the last two years of
bad luck with both the orchard and the corn, which had meant no cash crops. Not enough to pay off the mortgage he'd left along with the ranch. Not enough to hire the many men she needed to clear away the brush that was fast choking the grass out of her pastures and taking her crop land.

But enough—she knew it by the thought that God dropped into her head as the money dropped into her hand—to put together an outfit to go up the trail. Enough to pay a few men to gather the wily cattle hiding in the brush all over her ranch so she could drive them north.

That was all people talked about in town. How much more those cattle would bring in Kansas than in Texas. How much of a profit could be made.

And the drovers didn't have to be paid until the drive was done. Perfect!

Since Everett had been gone, she had sold off everything of value that she owned to keep the banker from foreclosing on her land. She could've used the found money to replace the good bull and the spare plow horses and the decent harness she used to have. She could've used part of it to pay the mortgage for this year.

Then she could've hunkered down and prayed for rain, holding on piecemeal for as long as she could.

Instead, she had decided to gamble, and it was too late to back out now.

Now she'd hired a trail boss who was trying to leave her at home. He must be pondering on that again, because he hadn't said a word for at least two miles.

“Brushy Creek is the next ranch,” she said to him. “We're almost there.”

She didn't leave home very often, usually only once a month or so to get supplies, but every time she did, she felt the same thrill at returning. This bend in the road that they were taking curved so sweetly around the grove of big live oak trees and, up ahead of that, her own lane came meandering down to meet the road where an old sweetgum tree stood sentinel at her gate. That sight lifted her heart every time. Brushy Creek Ranch. Her own place.

But the thought brought those cold, familiar fingers of fear to clutch her stomach. She took in a long, deep breath to try to loosen their grip.

No. She could not lose Brushy Creek. She would not. The drive north would make all the profit that it promised, she would pay off the whole mortgage against her ranch, and she would have enough money left over to make all the improvements it needed.

She would pay off the whole mortgage! Then, even if she couldn't sell any cash crops, her home
would be secure. Never again would she have to worry about having no home of her own.

She looked at Eagle Jack, who still hadn't answered her. His mind seemed a million miles away.

“See that lane up there that branches off from the road?” she said. “That's the entrance to my ranch.”

That woke him up.

“Good,” he said. “We'll have all afternoon to start the branding. We might get half done today. Do you think we could hire the men who did the gathering to stay and help?”

She stared at him.

“How can you be my trail boss if you don't listen to me any better than that?”

He stared back. “What I heard you say was that that's your place right up there.”

Somehow his saying the words “your place” sent that shard of fear through her heart again. He believed it. The neighbors believed it. The mortgage banker believed it. It wasn't just a dream that she owned a ranch. It really
was
her place to keep or lose.

Susanna said the quick prayer she always said when she thought about the money she'd borrowed.

Lord, don't let me lose it. Please help me keep my home.

“Earlier,” she told him, “in town, I told you that I spent my last money on you. I can't hire any more help that has to be paid before the drive.”

He looked her up and down as if he thought she'd lost her mind.

“You also said you were going to pay Tucker or whatever his name is and his brushpoppin' buddies for the gathering when you got home.”

He said it flatly, as if calling her a liar.

It flew all over her, after the years and years with Everett and his hateful ways of talking and behaving.

“I am.” She held his gaze without wavering and spoke just as flatly. Her financial situation was none of his business. She didn't need to tell him anything more. “You're my trail boss, Eagle Jack. Not my husband.”

“Thank God,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, “thank God. And I'll never have another one.”

“Right,” he said. “Marriage never looked too good to me, either.”

The sudden agreement took the wind out of the argument's sails for a heartbeat. They exchanged a startled look.

But she knew him already. He wasn't going to give up. Sure enough, he began to push again.

“You want to get on the trail as soon as possible, don't you, Susanna? The sooner we get 'em branded, the sooner we hit the trail. The sooner
we head 'em out, the sooner we load 'em on the rail cars in Kansas.”

“I know all that,” she said. “I tell you, I can't pay for help to do it all
sooner
.”

“Don't worry about the money. It's my decision, as trail boss.”

“We're not
on
the trail. Yet.”

“My point, exactly.”

Her temper snapped. “You are, without doubt, the stubbornest man who ever lived,” she said. “Listen to me. I have exactly enough money to pay Tucker what he asked for the gathering and he'll pay the other men. That's it. That's all. I saved that much back.”

“
You
listen to
me,
” he said. “I'm hiring help if there's help to be had, and I'll pay for it. I'm not going to lay over here for a week counting and branding this herd and packing a chuck wagon so you can make a pie while the best horse that ever ate grass is God knows where and having to put up with God knows what kind of treatment.”

That stirred all the old rage Susanna carried deep inside.

“I've had five years of independence now,” she said, “and never again will I abide a man's domination. I can tell you that, right now, Eagle Jack.”

He stared at her as if he couldn't believe his ears.

“Domination?” he said. “That's puttin' it a little strong, isn't it? All I'm doing is my job.”

“I don't care what you think,” she said. “All my life my aunts and my cousins and my uncles and their dogs told me what to do and I had to obey because I was living under their roofs and eating their food. Then it was the same with Everett.”

Tears threatened and she swallowed them back. “Even though I thought was getting a home of my own when I married him.”

Eagle Jack slowed his horse and waited, not saying a word.

“You're not about to put me into your debt,” she said, finally. “No. I will not owe you money. Then I'd owe you obedience, too, and I'd have no authority over my cattle or anything else.”

“That's not true,” he said.

She ignored that. “I'm the owner and I'm the one who pays the help. I have no more money and I can't trade work, since I'll soon be gone for months. Besides, how could I help a neighbor with the branding, since I've never branded so much as a goat?”

Eagle Jack smiled at that.

“Well, you're fixing to learn,” he said. “I'll put you at the fire handling the irons.”

That made her fear flare again.

“If you do, that'll be the last time you try to put me anywhere,” she said.

The look in his eyes was hard to read but he was watching her face steadily.

“I was only teasing you, Susanna,” he said gently. “Trying to lighten things up.”

His voice soothed her, almost like a hand patting her shoulder.

But he didn't understand. He still hadn't backed down.

“I've had some years of hard experience,” she said, “with a hard teacher. No man will ever give me orders again.”

They reached the end of her lane and she turned into it. Eagle Jack followed for a minute or two.

Then he rode his horse up beside hers again.

“Ol' Everett,” he said, seeming to muse to himself as the horses slow-trotted side by side. “Reckon it's possible that his soul didn't fly upward when he died?”

“'Probable' might be a better choice of words,” she said wryly.

Eagle Jack nodded sagely.

“Sorta what I was thinkin',” he said, “based on what you've told me about him so far. But I'm too polite just to come right out say so out loud.”

Susanna shook her head. In spite of her worries, he was lightening her heart a little bit. But it was only to get what he wanted. She had to remember that.

“You are not,” she said. “Eagle Jack, there's not a polite bone in your body except when you think it'll help you get your way.”

He raised his brows in mock surprise.

“Susanna! I know we just met but still I can't believe you don't know me any better than that.”

“I know you well enough,” she said. “You are totally still determined to go against my wishes and hire help with your own money.”

That truth tied her stomach into a knot.

What if he quit? Maybe she could do without him, now that she had a three-man crew.

No, she couldn't. Three men couldn't handle the herd, and from the looks of him, that boy Marvin she'd hired right off the street didn't know any more about how to take a herd to Kansas than she did.

But she could not lose control of her cattle, either.

“Distracting me isn't the same as convincing me to change my mind,” she said. She looked him straight in the eye. “I'm not going to give permission for you to hire more help now, Eagle Jack,” she said. “Keep your money and we'll just be a day or two later getting on the trail. It won't matter.”

He didn't answer right away and in the silence, the terrible seriousness of it all came over her again. The ancient longing that had been with her since her very first memory turned to a blind fear that seized and shook her like a giant's hand.

“My whole ranch—my whole
life
—is at stake,”
she blurted. “I can't bear to be homeless, ever again.”

Her voice shook with a growing urgency. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't choke back the flood of fearful words, either.

“I'm way too far in debt already,” she said. “So far in I may never get out. It was hopeless before I ever bought the chuck wagon and the supplies and everything's riding on what happens now.”

Susanna managed to take in a deep breath, but it didn't calm her enough to stop the panic pouring out of her.

“I've stepped off a cliff here,” she said, “and invested everything in this trail drive. I just can't bear another debt hanging over my head. I worry about money all the time as it is.”

She bit her tongue and held it. This was making her look ridiculous and he had to respect her if she was going to be able to boss him at all.

Finally, thank goodness, her mind took over from her emotions. She was telling him too much. She was letting her fear control her.

And for nothing, probably. Where had she found this man, anyhow?

She took another long, deep breath and tried to compose herself. Then she looked at him straight.

“Eagle Jack, thank you for the offer,” she said, “but I can't let you pay for anything. I'm the owner, I'm supposed to pay. Besides, if you couldn't
get yourself out of jail, how can you pay for any hired hands?”

“In jail, I couldn't get to my money,” he said.

He looked at her for a minute as they rode along, then he added, “I have a little saved up.”

“Keep it,” she said. “I'll never rest easy, all the way up the trail, if you don't.”

“How about this?” he said. “I hire the help we need and you pay me back at the end of the trail.”