“I never knew you expected to find living on a ranch exciting,” Bret said to Joseph after Emily had left them. “Nor did I know you’d been writing Emily.”
“I can’t see why you should think you ought to be privy to my thoughts or actions.” Joseph had dropped all pretense of politeness. Scorn practically dripped from his words.
“I don’t. I just can’t understand why, if you were so fond of Emily and she valued your opinion so much, your father would ask me to talk her into moving to Boston instead of you.”
Joseph laughed. “He thought it was too dangerous for me.” He looked around in disgust. “With all of Sam Abercrombie’s money, why would he choose to live in a place like this?”
“It’s a working ranch. There’s no need for velvet curtains, damask chair coverings, and Turkish carpets on the floor. They’d be cut to pieces in a few months. Ranch life is rough, and ranchers are rough men.”
“You sound like you admire them.”
“I’ve done their work. I know how hard it is.”
“If you like it so much, maybe you ought to stay here.”
“If I did, there’d be no need for Emily to move to Boston.”
Joseph’s body went rigid and he sat forward in his chair. “My father told you not to try to insinuate yourself into Emily’s affections. If you’ve led that poor girl to believe you’d make a suitable husband—”
“I’ve made it quite clear I’d be just the opposite.” Bret couldn’t understand why Joseph and his father thought everybody would do whatever they demanded. He supposed it came from a lifetime of ruling other people’s lives. “I’m going back to Boston any day now. Your father promised he’d look over some suggestions I had for changes to the company.”
“You can forget about any insignificant ideas you might have had,” Joseph said, his sneer back in place. “Father has come up with a brilliant plan to move Abbott and Abercrombie to the forefront of the industry for the next fifty years.” Then, to Bret’s shock and dismay, Joseph proceeded to outline the very plan Bret had presented to his uncle.
Uncle Silas was claiming Bret’s plan as his own.
“Those are my ideas,” Bret said. “I gave them to Uncle Silas months ago. Just before I left for Texas, he told me he hadn’t had a chance to look at them.”
If it was possible, Joseph’s look became even more contemptuous. “You might have fooled Emily and her father into thinking you know a lot about the shipping business, but don’t try that on me. Father hasn’t kept you in a clerking position because he thinks you’re brilliant.”
“He’s kept me in a clerking position because he doesn’t want anything to do with me,” Bret snapped. “Any more than you do. That’s fine with me—I don’t care about that anymore—but I won’t sit silently by and let him steal my ideas.”
“Assuming they were your ideas, what are you going to do about it?”
Bret opened his mouth to tell Joseph exactly what he intended to do, then thought better of it. If his uncle was willing to take the risk of claiming somebody else’s work, he must have already planned how to make it look like Bret was lying.
“I thought so,” Joseph said, a malignant smile on his face. “Father always said you were a bad seed. I didn’t know you were a liar as well.”
Bret stood. “I’m neither. Now I’d better show you to your room. I have work to do tomorrow, so I’ll be up at dawn.”
“You really are working on this miserable place?”
“Emily said you thought you’d find it exciting.”
“I’d never seen a cattle ranch before,” Joseph said evasively. “How was I to know what it was really like?”
“You could have asked me,” Bret said, knowing that Joseph would never have done such a thing. “I could have spared you the trip.”
“I didn’t come to look at the ranch.” Joseph had gotten to his feet. He looked at his suitcase, then at Bret.
“Out here you carry your own suitcase,” Bret said. “It’s part of what makes this a miserable place.”
Joseph’s look of anger did little to improve Bret’s mood. He had to get a telegram off to Rupert quickly. Picking up the lamp on the table between them, he led Joseph to his room.
“Is this the best room they have?” he asked, clearly stunned. The room was barely larger than the bed. The only other furniture was a ladder-back chair and a small chest of drawers. The walls were unadorned, and the window had no curtains. A basin and a pitcher of water sat on the chair. Bret assumed Jinx had brought the water in.
“It’s the only room left.”
“What about your room?”
“I’ll be happy to exchange, but you’ll have to share it with Jinx.”
“You mean that dirty boy I saw earlier? I couldn’t get a wink of sleep with him in the room.” He looked around in dismay. “I hope Emily’s room is better than this.”
“I can’t say. I’ve never seen it.”
“I’d be shocked if you had.”
“I’ll leave you the light,” Bret said.
“Won’t you need it?”
“I know the house well enough to find my room without it. Good night.”
Bret closed the door and headed to his room. Joseph was going to be in for a surprise when he discovered that Emily and her father didn’t share Joseph’s opinion of Bret. He was going to be even more surprised when he learned that Emily was going to Galveston rather than Boston, and that Bret would be going with her. But he was going to be horrified when he learned that Bret had been given the right to vote Sam’s stock in Abbott & Abercrombie.
But probably no more shocked than Bret had been at his uncle’s intended theft of his ideas. It was almost more than he could comprehend. He’d barely been able to contain his shock and rage. For a moment he’d thought he might explode. It wasn’t merely caution that had prompted him to control his outburst. Something had snapped inside. He didn’t know what it was. It was as though some tension had finally let go, some restraint had finally been removed.
Maybe he was ready to confront his uncle without any of the respect or deference he’d shown him in the past. Maybe he was ready to pull out records showing how his uncle was bleeding the company. He wouldn’t rest until he found a way to expose his uncle.
So what had changed? Why did he feel as if he’d been given a reprieve?
“Bertie said Joseph could eat what she fixed or he could go hungry,” Jinx was telling Bret and Emily. “She said if her cooking wasn’t good enough for him, he could head straight back to Boston. She said she never invited him to come sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.”
Bret and Emily had finished working with the horses. Jinx had come out for his lessons, but he was so excited, he hadn’t said anything about saddling up.
“I guess I’d better go up to the house,” Emily said. “Bertie can take an unaccountable dislike to some people.”
Bret thought Bertie was a genius for divining Joseph’s true character so quickly.
“Bertie said you wasn’t to bother your head about him,” Jinx told Emily. “Mr. Sam wants to see him.”
“Dad’s not strong enough to be seeing people.” Emily pulled off her gloves and tossed them on a shelf that held her riding equipment.
“You said he was looking a lot better this morning,” Bret reminded her.
“Not well enough to have an argument.”
“What makes you think he’ll argue with Joseph? He’s the one who thinks you ought to go to Boston.”
“If Bertie has taken a dislike to him, I expect Dad will as well.”
An idea popped into Bret’s head. It was a gamble, but at this point he was willing to take a chance. If Sam disliked Joseph, he would be anxious to give Bret all the weapons he could to prevent Emily from marrying Joseph, something Bret would have felt honor bound to do even without Sam’s help. Bret reached out to take Emily’s arm. He released it as soon as she turned back. “I think you ought to wait.”
“Why?”
“Joseph was the only who was nice to me when Dad took Mama to Boston to consult those fancy doctors.”
“If your father decides he’s not the perfect husband for you, he’ll be a lot happier about your going to Galveston. You realize he’s not happy about that compromise.”
“Dad liked Joseph. He said he seemed to be the only decent member of the Abbott family.”
Maybe he had been as a teenager anxious to please, but in the intervening ten years Joseph had assumed all the prejudices and arrogance of his father. Bret was certain Sam would see through him within five minutes.
“I’ll wait a few minutes,” Emily said, “but no longer.”
“You can watch me,” Jinx said.
“Watch you do what?” Emily said, smiling at the boy.
“Saddle my horse and mount up. Mr. Nolan taught me.”
Emily patiently watched Jinx and complimented him on what he’d learned, but Bret could see she was anxious about her father. “That’s enough for today,” he said when the boy had shown Emily he could guide his horse by pressure from his knees without having to yank on the reins. “I’m taking you on a long ride.”
Jinx bubbled over with excitement, and Bret resigned himself to the endless chatter of an eight-year-old while his mind would be busy wondering about the outcome of Joseph’s conversation with Sam. Not only did his future depend on it. So did Emily’s.
“Dad asked me to send Zeke and Hawk to him as soon as they finished lunch,” Emily said to Joseph. “They’ve been in there with him half the afternoon.”
“I can’t imagine what he has to say to men like that,” Joseph said.
“They found the rustlers,” Emily said. “He wants to thank them.”
“That should have been handled by your foreman.”
“He can’t do that when he’s missing,” Bertie pointed out.
Bertie had taken a profound dislike to Joseph. She usually worked in the kitchen most of the day, taking care of her cleaning in the morning and other chores during the afternoon. Today she’d busied herself wherever Joseph happened to be. While he seemed to be oblivious to her in the beginning, her gaze rarely left him. After she’d delivered several unexpected barbs, he began to cast caustic glances in her direction. That only encouraged Bertie. After she yanked him up out of a chair to dust cushions that hadn’t been touched in months, he made sure to stay out of her way.
Emily was grateful to Hawk and Zeke for stopping the rustling so quickly, and she was pleased her father had wanted to thank them personally, but she didn’t understand why he had kept them with him so long. He’d said he was feeling better, but he hadn’t looked good. He needed plenty of rest. She would have interrupted them long ago, but her father had made it clear he didn’t want to be interrupted, even by his daughter.
“What did you and Dad talk about this morning?” Emily asked Joseph.
“He asked me what Boston was like these days. He hasn’t lived there in more than thirty years. It’s changed a lot since the war.”
She hoped Joseph was perceptive enough to realize that talking about the war was a treacherous subject best avoided. Though her mother’s family had never owned slaves, the war had ruined them. She had lost her parents, a brother, two cousins, and several friends.
“Your father hasn’t lived in a city populated by sophisticated people in so long, I assured him he’d forgotten what civilized life was like. I told him I didn’t know why he hadn’t come back to Boston after he made his fortune.”
“What did he say?”
“He said if he’d gone anywhere, he’d have moved to Virginia to be near his wife’s family. I asked him why he’d want to have anything to do with traitors. He said he didn’t see it that way.”
Emily was beginning to wish she’d stayed with her father and had let Bret take care of her horses.
“He also asked me what I thought you ought to do,” Joseph added.
“What did you tell him?”
“You should have said it was none of your business what she did,” Bertie interjected. She was dusting a table she’d dusted at least a half dozen times already. Emily expected to see her set up her ironing at any minute.
“Exactly what I’ve told you,” Joseph said. “I’m sure you’re capable of managing this ranch by yourself. Of course, that would only be suitable if you had a husband to handle the more unpleasant tasks such as dealing with your hands and riding about to see what your cows are doing.”
“I like dealing with the cowhands and riding over the ranch,” Emily said.
“That’s exactly why I think Texas is bad for you. A young lady from Boston would never think of doing anything like that.”
“Scared of cows, are they?” Bertie asked.
Joseph ignored her. “I would prefer that you move to Boston,” he said to Emily. “Since the war, Texas has turned into a haven for liars, thieves, and murderers. I told your father that my father would be happy to offer you a home with us as long as you want. Besides, you’ll need someone to oversee your financial affairs. My father will be happy to do that for you, too.”
“She’s got Mr. Nolan to do that for her,” Bertie said.
Emily barely managed to keep from turning around to gape at Bertie. Neither she nor her father had made any such arrangement with Bret, and Bertie knew it. Bertie’s statement surprised Joseph, and he didn’t make any attempt to disguise his reaction.
“You can’t do that,” he declared. “He’s nothing but a clerk.”
“I thought it was clerks that added up the numbers to make sure everything came out right,” Bertie said.
“Adding and subtracting is all they’re good for,” Joseph said. “I’m talking about knowing where to invest your inheritance, how to vote your stock in Abbott and Abercrombie.”
“After working so closely with you and your father, I’m sure Mr. Nolan knows all about that.” Bertie had stopped polishing the table and moved where she could face Joseph. She towered over him like a bull over a calf.
“Bret doesn’t have any concept of how Abbott and Abercrombie is run,” Joseph stated. “He wouldn’t even have a job if my grandmother hadn’t thrown a fit when my father said he didn’t want to hire another poor relation.”
“That brings up something I’ve wanted to know,” Emily said, turning to look directly at Joseph. “What possible excuse could your father have had for not taking in his seven-year-old nephew after his father died?”
Bertie planted her hands on her hips. “I’d like to know that, too.”
Chapter Eighteen
Rattled, Joseph couldn’t stop his gaze from swinging to encompass Bertie before turning back to Emily. “The war was just starting, and travel from Texas was impossible. There were blockades all along the coast. My father was certain Bret would be safe until the end of the war.”
“Why didn’t he go after him then?” Emily asked.
“He didn’t know where he had gone.”
“And he didn’t look?” Bertie asked, her disapproval emphasized by gathered eyebrows and compressed mouth.
“Things were very dangerous in Texas. The army had to be called in to keep order.”
“The army was called in to help liars and thieves steal from honest Texans,” Bertie said. “My father lost his land to one of your Yankee carpetbaggers.”
The temperature in the room would probably have risen several more degrees if Jinx and Bret hadn’t entered at that moment.
“I lassoed a calf,” Jinx announced. “And I did it all by myself.”
Bertie swung her attention to Jinx. “And I suppose Mr. Nolan was back at the barn with his feet up chewing on a straw.”
“He was helping me,” Jinx said, incensed that Bertie
would malign his hero. “He chased the calf close so I could lasso it.”
“You didn’t let him ride a horse, did you?” Bertie said, turning to Bret.
“Yeah,” Jinx said, bursting with pride. “But he made me let go of the rope as soon as I got it over the calf’s head. He said I didn’t know how to wrap the rope around the saddle horn without losing a finger.”
“Thank God for small favors.” Bertie glanced significantly at Joseph. “Now that Mr. Nolan’s here, I can start supper. And you,” she said, taking Jinx by the ear, “have to clean up before I’ll let you set a foot in my kitchen.”
“Why do you put up with that woman?” Joseph asked when she’d left. “My mother wouldn’t keep her a week.”
“Then your mother would be making a big mistake.” Bret turned from Joseph to Emily. “How is your father?”
Emily couldn’t help comparing Bret with Joseph. Both men were tall and attractive, but while Joseph was dressed in a black three-piece suit with white shirt, tie, and black shoes, Bret wore form-fitting jeans, a dun-colored shirt, and a brown vest, his dusty boots making dull thumps on the board floor when he walked. While Joseph’s style of dress drew attention to his clothes, Bret’s attire unerringly drew Emily’s gaze to his body. He was so superior physically, he made Joseph’s body seem unappealing. Emily began to feel a little warm as she noticed the way the jeans hugged Bret’s thighs and bottom or the way his shirt was stretched across his broad shoulders. And she loved the fact that though he shaved every morning, by the evening he looked like he could use another. There was something about that slightly untidy appearance that made him seem more masculine, more attractive, more virile.
“I don’t know how Dad’s doing,” she said, pulling her thoughts back from Bret’s body and hoping she wasn’t blushing. “Your brothers have been locked away with him ever since lunch.”
Bret glanced in the direction of her father’s room, then back. “You should have chased them out.”
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