Best Man in Wyoming

by Margot Dalton

  ‘‘So, Rex,’’ she said with forced brightness as Sam climbed the steps and entered the office, ‘‘you’re not worried about spending a whole week on horseback? Won’t be too sore to move after the first day?’’

  ‘‘I’ve been doing a little practising today,’’ Rex said casually. ‘‘Right, Sam?’’

  ‘‘What’s that?’’ Sam looked thoughtfully at Rex’s grin and Lindsay’s flushed cheeks, then began riffling through a pile of mail on a side table.

  ‘‘The mail is mostly catalogs,’’ Lindsay told him. ‘‘Oh, and a personal note for you that I set over there. I don’t know who it’s from.’’

  Sam picked up the note in its plain yellow envelope and studied it curiously. Lindsay was intrigued by the sudden flare of interest on his weathered face.

  ‘‘Do you recognize the handwriting?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘Hmm?’’ The older man looked up vaguely, then smiled at the envelope before putting it away in his shirt pocket. He even patted his chest a couple of times as if making sure the letter was safe.

  Lindsay watched him, increasingly puzzled.

  ‘‘I was telling Linnie how you’ve agreed to helping me learn to get on a horse again before this big trail ride of hers,’’ Rex said.

  Sam glanced at the younger man. A look passed between them, an expression of understanding and complicity that left Lindsay more puzzled than ever.

  The old cowboy nodded and turned back to his niece. ‘‘That’s true,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m looking forward to spending the odd half hour reminding this fancy city lawyer which end of a horse you put the feed bag on.’’

  ‘‘Well, that’s a good idea,’’ Lindsay said. ‘‘But do you think he’ll be ready in time? We’re leaving before dawn on Monday, you know.’’

  ‘‘Beats me,’’ Sam drawled. Again she caught a glance between the two men and a flash of humor in Sam’s eyes. ‘‘He may look the part right now, but these lawyers aren’t much good as cowboys. You might have to rig up a sling and carry him.’’

  ‘‘Now, Sam,’’ Rex said, grinning, ‘‘don’t be so hard on me. You know I’ll try hard to learn all the stuff I’ve forgotten.’’

  Sam chuckled, and Lindsay gave him a sharp glance. ‘‘Hey, what’s going on here, exactly?’’ she asked, looking from one man to the other. ‘‘Do you two have some kind of big secret?’’

  Rex’s handsome face looked guileless. ‘‘Why do you ask that?’’

  ‘‘Because you’re wandering around dressed up like a cowboy for the first time in fifteen years,’’ she said, ‘‘and Sam’s acting like the cat that swallowed the canary. The two of you keep grinning at each other, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on here!’’

  ‘‘Poor cranky baby,’’ Rex said indulgently. ‘‘She really needs a holiday, don’t you think, Sam?’’

  He patted her head in the condescending fashion that had always enraged her when they were teenagers. But now she felt the warmth of his hand through her hair and it made her tingle all over again.

  ‘‘Look, get out of my office,’’ she said in despair. ‘‘This minute, both of you, or I’ll never get any work done. I have tons of stuff to look after if I’m going to be away for a whole week.’’

  ‘‘I’ve already booked off work till the end of August,’’ Rex said. ‘‘I can come out tomorrow and help you, okay?’’

  ‘‘Oh, Rex, there’s no need for that,’’ Lindsay told him hastily.

  The truth was, she would have welcomed some help, but she wasn’t sure she wanted the man hanging around all day in the intimate confines of her office. Especially not the way he was behaving lately. His presence was too distracting and brought waves of the kind of feeling she hadn’t dealt with for years.

  Rex ignored her protests. ‘‘Of course I’ll help. You need to finish up your regular paperwork as well as get all the supplies ordered for the trip and make sure the boys pack everything they need. I can take a lot of that burden off your shoulders.’’

  He was right, those were all things she’d been concerned about, and it would be nice having somebody sharing the burden.

  As long as he kept his hands to himself and didn’t look at her with that disturbing intensity or talk about things like sex and lovemaking....

  ‘‘Well, okay,’’ Lindsay said at last when she realized he was waiting for her answer. ‘‘I guess I could use some help with the planning. You just...have to behave yourself,’’ she concluded lamely.

  ‘‘Behave myself?’’ Rex arched an inquiring eyebrow.

  ‘‘You can’t keep teasing me all the time. I thought we got over that stuff when we were kids.’’

  ‘‘Maybe I’m not teasing,’’ Rex said.

  Lindsay tensed again and looked over at Sam, who was peering into his shirt pocket. She detected a ghost of a smile on his craggy features.

  ‘‘Sam!’’ she said. Her uncle came to attention with a visible start. ‘‘If Rex comes out tomorrow, will you work with him planning the trail ride and ordering the supplies? Then I won’t have to worry about it.’’

  ‘‘Sure thing,’’ Sam said amiably. ‘‘Come on, Rex, let’s go over and check out those horse trailers.’’

  The old man patted the letter in his shirt pocket again, then ambled out, followed by Rex, who paused in the doorway to give Lindsay a thoughtful glance.

  ‘‘Go!’’ she said. ‘‘Leave me alone. I’m busy.’’

  ‘‘Wait’ll I get you out there in the middle of the wilderness,’’ he said. ‘‘You’ll have to give me your undivided attention.’’

  ‘‘You and six boys,’’ she scoffed, ‘‘and fourteen horses. Look,’’ she added seriously, ‘‘stop all this nonsense, okay, Rex? I don’t know why exactly you want to keep teasing me, but it makes me really uncomfortable. Just quit kidding around.’’

  ‘‘Sure, Lindsay,’’ he said obediently. ‘‘Whatever you say.’’

  His face was sober, his eyes sparkling with laughter. Lindsay had to restrain herself from flinging something at the door as it closed behind him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AN HOUR LATER, Sam and Rex strolled across the ranch yard to the lawyer’s Cadillac. Rex opened the door and got in, then squinted up through the open window at the older man, who lounged against the fender.

  “You’re looking more like a real cowboy all the time,” Sam said. “Even in this fancy buggy you drive.”

  “Maybe I’ll have to trade it in and get a pickup truck,” Rex said.

  “Now, don’t get carried away,” Sam told him. “Just because you go out and rope a few steers, that doesn’t mean you’ve knocked off fifteen years of rust.”

  “So you’re another one who believes a lawyer can’t be a cowboy?”

  Sam studied the man’s handsome face. “Well, you’ve traveled a whole lot of miles since you left this place, Rex.”

  “Too far to come back?” Rex asked.

  “That depends. I’m not even sure why you want to come back. If you do.”

  Rex tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and looked across the paddock at a couple of grazing horses. “Maybe I’m lonely, Sam.”

  “Everybody’s lonely.” Sam felt a touch of sadness. “But trying to crawl back into your past...Rex, I don’t believe that’s the way to deal with it.”

  “You think that’s what I’m doing?”

  “I can’t see what else you’d call it,” Sam said. “Wearing jeans and riding horses, flirting with Lindsay...those were all things you did back when you were fifteen years old.”

  Rex glanced up at him. “You don’t like me flirting with Lindsay?”

  Sam scuffed a boot toe in the dirt and considered his answer carefully.

  “Not when I can see how nervous it makes her. Look, son, you and Lin
dsay have had a good working relationship for years, and together you’ve done a whole lot for this ranch. I don’t rightly know why you want to complicate things now. If it’s just a joke, Lindsay doesn’t seem to be getting it.”

  Rex shifted on the leather upholstery, picked up a pair of sunglasses and set them down again. “I’m not really sure what’s happening myself,” he said at last. “For the past year or two, especially since that bachelor auction, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life. And it seems...” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “It seems my thoughts always come back to Lindsay.”

  Sam felt a growing concern. He cared deeply for both these young people, and had a feeling they were heading for big trouble.

  Especially Lindsay, who seemed so fragile these days.

  Rex watched him, obviously reading his thoughts. “I’m not going to hurt her, Sam,” he said, “if that’s what you’re worried about. You should know I’d never hurt Lindsay.”

  “I’m not worried so much about that,” Sam said slowly. “It seems to me somebody’s already hurt her, and she needs her friends right now.”

  “So you’re warning me not to try being anything but a friend?”

  “Just don’t keep teasing her,” Sam said. “She’s got enough on her mind, what with this trail ride happening just before the fall term. She doesn’t need any more problems to fret about.”

  Rex turned his key in the ignition. “Okay, Sam,” he said, his face carefully expressionless. “I’ll think about what you said.”

  “So are you still coming out tomorrow?”

  Rex nodded, his hands on the wheel. “I promised Lindsay I’d help her.”

  “Well, good,” Sam said, standing away for the car. “She could use the extra hand, I reckon.”

  Rex waved and drove out of the ranch yard with sunlight flashing off the sides of his expensive car.

  Sam watched him go and shook his head, wondering just what was going on in Rex Trowbridge’s head, and how it was going to affect Lindsay.

  But they were grown-ups, had been for long time. He couldn’t meddle in their business any more than he’d done already.

  With a sudden lift of spirits, Sam took the yellow envelope from his pocket, opened it and leaned against a fence in the sunlight, smiling as he read a handwritten note on flowered paper.

  * * *

  IN THE DOORWAY of the stable, Clint Kraft watched as the two men talked, then the lawyer drove off in his Cadillac. He turned aside with an angry scowl and kicked an empty pail, sending a hollow clatter echoing through the building.

  He wouldn’t be so upset about this stupid trail ride if that damned lawyer wasn’t going along. Why couldn’t it be Sam Duncan, instead?

  Clint hated all lawyers for the power they had over people, and what they’d done to his own life. And Rex Trowbridge was a typical lawyer with his polished good looks, his fancy clothes and handsome face and easy, sophisticated manner.

  Clint’s anger rose, almost overwhelming him. He felt weak and sick with rage, and had to pause for a moment, leaning against a box stall until the emotion passed. Underneath the anger was pain so intense that he could hardly bear to think about his life during the past few years.

  Nobody had ever noticed him much, not even when he was a little boy. Clint didn’t know who his father was, and if he had grandparents or other relatives, he hadn’t heard about them. But his mother had usually been around, providing a kind of shaky center to his life.

  She’d been drunk or stoned most of the time, and had a string of boyfriends, most of whom treated young Clint with casual brutality. But at least she’d been there, until she was arrested and sent to jail on a drug charge when he was thirteen.

  Clint had gone into a series of foster homes, but none of them had kept him for more than a few months. When he was fifteen he ran away and started living on the streets of Denver. He made his way with quick wits and hard fists, finally getting involved with a gang that gave him a harsh facsimile of the family he’d never known.

  But during the past spring he was caught with two of his friends during an armed robbery. And then he fell into the hands of lawyers.

  Clint kicked the pail again, his face darkening.

  As a result of those lawyers and their finagling, he’d been sent far away from Denver to this dumb kiddie place.

  He disliked everything about Lost Springs Ranch except the horses, and Sam and Lindsay Duncan. But especially he hated that suave polished lawyer who was director of the board. And the younger boys who acted so childish all the time.

  Clint didn’t hate Lindsay, though. He realized she was sincere and tried very hard to help all the kids at the ranch. But he was also frightened by the way she made him feel. Sometimes when Lindsay spoke gently to him during meals, or came down to the stable to express an interest in his life and the work he was doing, Clint was worried by his own reaction.

  He caught himself wanting to talk to her, to make her understand what his life had been like and how he felt about things, and how scared he’d been when he was involved in that robbery and the police caught him.

  He abhorred this unaccustomed weakness in himself. It made him more resolved than ever to hold everybody at arm’s length.

  They couldn’t keep him in this stupid place for more than another few months. If they tried, he’d run off and make his way back to Denver somehow. The streets were hard, and life inside the gang was brutal and scary all the time. But it was a different kind of fear from this soft, dangerous emotion that threatened to tear down all his defenses.

  He wandered into the feed room and started filling pails with grain for the horses, still thinking about the upcoming trail ride.

  Spending a whole week in isolation with a woman, a lawyer and five bratty little kids. What could possibly be worse? And they wanted him to be in charge of the horses. He was even supposed to select the ones they were going to use as saddle horses and pack animals.

  Sam had told him how the horses at Lost Springs were trained for use by amateur trail riders.

  “Our horses are taught all the trails around the ranch,” Sam had explained, “so they’re safe for anybody to ride. A group of boys can set out in any direction they like. When it’s time to head back, they just have to give the lead horse his head and he’ll find the way home to the ranch. That way, nobody ever gets lost.”

  Clint carried heavy pails of feed through the stable and dumped chopped grain into all the mangers, still thinking about Sam’s words. An idea began to form in his mind, an impulsive, mischievous thought that made his face break into a slow grin.

  So they wanted him to pick the horses, did they? Well, that was just what he planned to do.

  He strolled out into the corral next to the stable and looked at four horses who stood quietly against the white fence, flicking their tails at flies in the afternoon heat. Two were sorrels, one was a bay and one was a small buckskin. They were all gentle, well-trained horses, and the buckskin mare had been accustomed for years to having children ride her.

  Lindsay and the lawyer could have the two sorrels, he decided. They were the biggest horses, and both had a bit of spirit. Clint himself would ride the bay, and he’d give the buckskin to little Danny.

  He grinned again, tickled by the wickedness of his plan. He probably couldn’t have gotten away with it a month ago but the old man seemed unusually preoccupied these days, more and more willing to leave the work at the stables to Clint. Sam shouldn’t be too hard to fool.

  Lindsay and the smart-aleck lawyer certainly weren’t going to suspect anything. They didn’t know the truth about these four horses.

  Clint’s smile broadened. He patted the little buckskin, scratching behind her ears while the mare closed her eyes in bliss.

  “This is going to be fun, Daisy,” he whispered to her. “Really fun.”
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  For a moment his amusement was dampened by a tug of fear about the consequences of his action. Clint glanced into the ranch yard, almost hoping Sam would come talk to him about the selection of horses for the trail ride and forbid him to do what he was planning.

  But Sam was leaving the ranch, heading off in his truck on some errand of his own. Clint stood there and watched the vehicle disappear from sight. Finally he let the four horses into the stable and opened the manger doors to give them all their daily feed of grain.

  * * *

  AS SAM DROVE up the trail toward Rob and Twyla Carter’s house, he tried hard to feel casual, as if this were a normal social call like any other. But his heart was pounding, and he felt as nervous as a boy.

  When he neared the house, Sam saw somebody sitting on the porch. He caught a flash of white hair and the brightness of a pink cotton shirt, and it was all he could do not to stop, turn around and flee back to the safety of the ranch.

  But she’d probably already seen him, in which case he’d look like a complete idiot if he ran off with his tail between his legs.

  Sam gripped the wheel nervously, took a deep breath and parked near the house. When he got out of the truck, he realized with a sinking heart that Gwen wasn’t alone. He could hear her voice and her warm bubble of laughter as she spoke to somebody.

  She watched him approach and waved a greeting. Sam mounted the steps, carrying a plastic-wrapped package, and realized the other occupant of the porch was Gwen’s small grandson, Brian.

  He felt a surge of relief. Brian was a nice little boy, probably around the same age as young Danny at the ranch. And Sam Duncan had always been comfortable around boys.

  “Why, hello, Sam,” Gwen said. “How nice to see you again.”

  She sounded sincere, but maybe she was just being polite. Sam tipped his hat and smiled at the pleasant scene on the old front porch. Gwen McCabe and her grandson were shelling peas. They had a mountain of empty pods in a bushel basket between them, another basket containing full pods, and a couple of plastic pails brimming with freshly shelled green peas.