When Love Comes (3 page)

Amanda sensed that her mother was about to launch into her lecture on a man and his responsibilities. The one thing her mother couldn’t stand was a man who was free of obligations. She was convinced that all men were inherently bad, that only the responsibility of a family and holding a respectable place in the community enabled a man to overcome his iniquitous nature. She was kept from her lecture by the bursting open of the kitchen door and Leo’s unexpected appearance.

“Andy’s hurt. I think he’s broken his collarbone.”

Eddie was out of his chair and through the door before Leo had time to turn around. Amanda rose from the table. “I’ll come immediately.”

“I’ll be glad to help.” Broc had left his chair almost as quickly as Eddie. “I saw a lot of broken bones during the war.”

Amanda was relieved to have his assistance. Andy and Leo were both still in their teens, barely old enough to handle their jobs, but Carruthers and Ian Sandoval, owners of the ranches on either side of them, had either hired or scared off the more experienced help. No Western man wanted to work for women, so Amanda had felt fortunate to be able to convince Andy and Leo to hire on.

“I put him in the bunkhouse,” Leo said. “He’s moaning some kinda awful.”

“What happened?” Amanda asked.

“It was those fools who work for Carruthers,” Leo said. “They started teasing Andy, saying he wasn’t old enough to be a cowhand, that he couldn’t do half the things they could. And you know Andy. Had to prove he was equal to any one of them. They egged him on to rope the biggest, meanest steer they could find. It pulled Andy out of his saddle. Mighty near crippled his horse, too.”

Cowhands from both Carruthers and Sandoval frequently hazed Leo and Andy. She was certain her neighbors had instructed their men to cause as much trouble as they could.
The sooner they drove off anyone who would work for the Lazy T, the sooner one of them could buy it.

Andy was lying on his bunk looking pitiful when they entered the bunkhouse.

“Leo said he thinks you broke your collarbone,” Amanda said.

“I don’t know,” Andy said. “It hurts too much to tell.”

“Let me get your shirt off, and I’ll take a look at it,” Broc said.

“He probably knows more about broken bones than any of us,” Amanda said when Andy looked like he might refuse. “He fought in the war.”

Andy wasn’t happy when Broc removed his shirt by cutting it at the seams. “That’s my best work shirt,” he complained.

“It was cut it off or cause you more pain,” Broc said.

“I can sew it up again,” Amanda offered.

“Why does Andy’s shoulder look weird?” Eddie asked.

Andy’s shoulder was tilted at an odd angle. Amanda waited nervously while Broc ran his fingers around Andy’s collarbone, pressing slightly every inch or so.

“His collarbone is okay,” Broc said when he’d finished, “but he’s separated his shoulder.”

“Get the wagon,” Amanda said to Leo.

“You don’t have to do that,” Broc said. “I can set it.”

“I’d rather Doc do it,” Andy said.

“It’ll take you nearly an hour to get to town,” Amanda pointed out. “Riding in the wagon will jar your shoulder. You’ll be in constant pain.”

Amanda wasn’t sure why she was trying to convince Andy to let Broc doctor him. She didn’t really know anything about Broc. Still, she was convinced he could set Andy’s shoulder.

“Okay.”

Andy’s expression was in opposition to his words. He was
so much like Gary, Amanda worried about him. She almost felt guilty for giving Andy a job that offered so many ways to get hurt. He was determined to be thought as much a man as someone with ten years more experience.

Broc looked around. Apparently not finding what he wanted, he picked up the sleeve of Andy’s shirt, folded it several times, and handed it to him. “It’s going to hurt. Bite on this.”

“I’m no chicken.”

“No one thinks you are,” Broc assured him, “but having your shoulder put back in its socket hurts. No point in getting broken teeth in the bargain.”

Andy looked as though he was going to refuse. “Take the shirt,” Leo snapped. “I don’t want you spitting out pieces of your teeth. You’re ugly enough already.”

Reluctantly, Andy took the folded sleeve and put it between his teeth.

“Try to relax,” Broc said. “It’ll be easier on both of us.”

It quickly became apparent Andy wasn’t going to relax. Each time Broc touched him or tried to get into position, Andy pulled away.

“Stop it, you fool!” Leo shouted. “He’s just trying to help.”

“How do I know he’s not going to make it worse?” Andy asked. “It already hurts like hell.”

Amanda had never realized Andy was so immature. How were they ever going to make a go of the ranch as long as the only people who’d work for them were teens?

“It’s going to keep on hurting like hell if you don’t get it fixed,” Leo said.

“I want Doc to do it.”

“Damned fool,” Leo muttered. “I’m tired of babysitting you.”

“I’m not a fool,” Andy shot back. “And nobody babysits me.”

“Go hitch up the wagon,” Amanda intervened. “It won’t take long to—”

Amanda had already turned to leave when she heard Andy utter a small grunt. When she looked back, she saw Broc standing behind Andy, Andy’s treasured pearl-handled revolver in his hand. He’d just used the weapon to knock the boy unconscious. Leo stared openmouthed. Eddie muttered a word Amanda was certain he’d gleaned from Gary’s vocabulary. She watched in shocked silence while Broc quickly and efficiently reset Andy’s shoulder.

“He’ll have a headache when he wakes up, but his shoulder won’t hurt so badly. Now I’d better leave,” Broc said when he stood. “He’s not going to be happy with me when he wakes up.”

“How long will it take?” Leo asked, awe and fear in his voice.

“Just a few minutes. I didn’t hit him hard.”

Eddie stared at Andy’s inert form. “I think you killed him,” he said to Broc.

Broc ruffled Eddie’s hair. The boy pulled away. “I didn’t kill him. He won’t even have much of a bruise where I hit him. Let’s go back to the table before all the food gets cold.”

“Stay with him.” Amanda spoke to Leo, but her gaze didn’t leave Broc’s retreating back.

“Who is that man?” Leo asked.

Amanda hardly knew what to say. She didn’t want to admit she’d let a stranger take control of a situation that should have been hers to handle. “He fought in the war. He’s been in California and is on his way back to a ranch here in Texas.”

“He shouldn’t have hit Andy.”

Amanda agreed, but Broc had set Andy’s shoulder in less than a minute, thereby saving him a lot of pain. “Andy was starting to panic. By the time he got to Cactus Bend, he might have been too upset to let the doctor fix his shoulder.”

Leo glanced down at Andy, who appeared to be resting peacefully. “I wish he weren’t such an idiot. I told him Carruthers’s men were just trying to cause trouble.”

“I’ll speak to Carruthers about his men.”

“A lot of good that will do,” Leo scoffed. “He won’t even listen to the sheriff.”

Sheriff Tom Mercer would sympathize with her, promise to talk to the rancher, then probably go off and have a beer with him. The position of sheriff was an elected office, and Carruthers and Sandoval were the biggest landowners in the area. The sheriff wasn’t likely to do anything that would cost him their support. Andy started to stir.

“Let me know if he needs anything.”

“A brain would be helpful.”

Amanda smiled. Leo was young, but he would make a good hand when he got more experience. Andy would probably improve if he had someone who could provide the discipline and give him the training he needed, but she didn’t know of anyone who could do that. Certainly not her brother, when he couldn’t even be depended on to do his own work before running off to the saloon.

She needed an experienced foreman to manage the ranch, but she didn’t have the money to pay one. Until the ranch started making a profit, it would take nearly everything they earned from the saloon to support the family. Their plan to hire the bull out for stud services had come to naught when both Carruthers and Sandoval had refused and convinced—or forced—the rest of the ranchers to do the same.

Gary wanted them to sell the ranch, but her mother would never agree. She had hated depending on income that had come from drinking and gambling. She had dreamed of being a social leader in Cactus Bend, but she believed that was impossible as long as she was associated with the saloon. She’d plagued her husband until he’d bought the ranch. The
Lazy T was her claim to respectability, and she would never let it go. Instead, she wanted Amanda to quit working in the saloon. So far Amanda had been unable to make her mother understand that the income from the saloon had been all that kept the ranch afloat. All too often, her mother wouldn’t see what she didn’t want to see.

When Amanda entered the house, Broc, Eddie, and her mother were finishing their meal as though nothing had happened to disturb it.

“How is Andy?” Broc asked when she was seated at the table.

“He’s beginning to revive.”

Broc studied her for a moment. “You don’t think I should have hit him, do you?”

He’d given her a perfect opening. “No, I don’t. Why did you?”

He shrugged. “I saw lots of boys panic during the war. We didn’t have time to deal with it. Besides, it could get them killed. We had to knock that out of them as soon as possible.”

“Did you knock them in the head, too?” Eddie asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Amanda asked.

“Not if you know how to do it.”

“Will you teach me?” Eddie asked.

“No, he will not,” Amanda said. “I don’t want anybody knocking anybody in the head.”

“I can think of several people who could benefit by a good knock on the head,” her mother observed.

Amanda didn’t know how things had come to such a pass. Her mother had never advocated violence. She’d always said it was unladylike. What was it about Broc Kincaid that made her mother and brother think he had the answers to everything?

“I’d like to knock Sammy Loftus in the head,” Eddie said.

Amanda ignored him. Eddie’s long-running feud with Sammy Loftus was well-known by everyone in Cactus Bend.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Broc said to her mother, “but I need to be on my way. Can you recommend a good hotel?”

“There’s only one,” Amanda said.

“It’s of very poor quality,” Mrs. Liscomb observed. “You’ll find the best food at the Open Door.”

“That’s the saloon we used to own,” Eddie told Broc.

“It’s also the name of our old diner,” his mother reminded him.

“I’d like to speak to you after you saddle your horse,” Amanda said to Broc. He looked surprised but left the kitchen without comment.

She wasn’t sure that what she had in mind was a good idea, but it might be the perfect solution to her problems. It was clear her brother liked Broc, but it was equally clear her mother was relieved at the departure of such a severely injured man. She might be impressed by his confidence, but she didn’t approve of unattractive injuries any more than she approved of bad manners.

For her part, Amanda had almost forgotten Broc’s scars. He had such a strong personality, it was hard to think of anything else. The scars were as much a part of him as the perfect side of his face. Somehow they represented the duality she saw in his personality, the kindness he showed to her and the rough way he’d dealt with Andy. She watched him as he emerged from the barn and led his horse toward her. She guessed he was around thirty, but it was hard to tell. The good side of his face looked very young, but he walked with the confidence of a man who had no fear of what might be asked of him. That was exactly the kind of man she needed to run the ranch, the kind of man who would stand up to Carruthers and Sandoval. Gary would be furious, her mother
wouldn’t like it, and it was possible Andy might quit, but she had made up her mind.

“Thanks again for dinner,” Broc said when he reached her. “Now I’d better be going.”

“Wait. I want to ask you something.”

He paused just before mounting his horse, but now that she was on the verge of asking her question, the words seemed to stick in her throat. She would have to justify her decision to her whole family, and she had no way of doing that beyond saying that her instinct made her believe she could trust this stranger. She pushed the words out. “I’d like you to work for us. I want you to be the foreman of the Lazy T.”

Now that she’d gotten the words out, the expected feeling of relief didn’t come. Broc was looking at her in that inscrutable way again, making her uneasy, making her feel she’d done something stupid and he didn’t know how to tell her.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” she said. “You can ask people in town about us. We don’t have a large ranch, so I can’t pay you very much, but you could sleep in the house and eat with us.” She made herself stop talking. She was beginning to sound as if she was begging.

“Just because I can set a shoulder doesn’t mean I know anything about ranching,” Broc said.

“You said you’d worked on a ranch since the end of the war.”

“I have, but I’m just a cowhand like Leo and Andy.”

“I’m sure you know more than those boys. Besides, they need someone like you to organize the work for them, show them how to do it, and make sure it gets done. They’re good boys, but they’re young.”

“What about your brother?”

“Gary is nearly as inexperienced as they are.”

“I mean what would he think about me being put in charge?”

“He wouldn’t like it, but he’d understand why it was necessary.”

“Would your mother agree with him?”

How could he pick out the weak spots in her plan so quickly? “My mother has wanted a ranch ever since she moved to Texas. She won’t care about anything if you can make the ranch pay for itself.”

“I have a job that I’ve been away from for a long time. I have a responsibility to my friends, and I like to live up to my promises.”

She wanted to argue with him, but she couldn’t encourage him to ignore his obligations. She’d offered him the job because she believed he was the kind of man who
wouldn’t
ignore them.

“Have your brother tie the bull up or put him in a stall when you take cows in or out of his pasture,” Broc advised. “He may look docile, but any bull can be dangerous when there are cows around.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Gary.”

Broc looked like he wanted to say something but changed his mind. “Thanks again. Watch out for your little brother. He’s a good kid.”

“He’s too full of himself, but I know what you mean. Have a safe trip back to your ranch.”