Scandal with the Rancher

by Julia Justiss

  She heard a groan, not sure whether it was his or hers. He mopped his face with one hand and said, “By all the saints, Marguerite-mine, so much easier it would have been, if you’d accepted my first offer.”

  “I know,” she acknowledged softly. “Sometimes I wish that, too. Being in the same room with you, working with you, and not being able to...it’s like trying to stay alive without breathing.”

  His mouth widened in a smile and his gaze turned sultry. “You can always reconsider.”

  “Alas, though, the consequences haven’t changed.”

  “Nor would the rewards,” he murmured, his gaze on her lips.

  Drat the man, how he could make her best intentions waver! “I-I’d better stick with the second offer,” she said at last, wishing she had a fan. She was definitely in need of cooling down.

  Fortunately, the bell on the door jingled, and she turned to see a customer enter. Desire ebbed in a prickle of alarm as she recognized Mrs. Allen—one of Lydia McCleary’s closest friends.

  Putting on a smile, Marguerite nodded to her. “Good day, Mrs. Allen. What can I help you with?”

  Ignoring Marguerite, Mrs. Allen walked over to Ronan. “Mr. Kelly, I thought I saw you in here! How fortunate, since I understand Jesse Chandler has abandoned us for the lures of Austin. I hear you’ve brought back a new shipment of bonnets and gowns. I just must have a few new things for spring!” she declared, giving him a bright smile.

  “I’m sure we’ll have something to tickle your fancy, ma’am. Jesse trained Mrs. McMasters to take his place. She can help you find whatever you want.”

  To Marguerite, he added, “I’ll be in the office, if you need anything.”

  “Oh, but Mr. Kelly,” Mrs. Allen said, catching his sleeve. “I’d prefer for you to wait on me.”

  “Mrs. McMasters has just completed a full inventory of our goods,” he said, detaching his cuff from her grasp. “She knows better than I what we have and where to find it. You’ll be much better off in her capable hands.”

  Marguerite stood listening to the exchange, her smile turning wooden. Was this to be Lydia McCleary’s next tactic—to induce her supporters to refuse to allow Marguerite to wait on them?

  Finally, Mrs. Allen looked at her. Or rather, looked her up and down, her nostrils pinched in distaste, as if she’d just discovered a dead rat on the mercantile floor. “I’m hardly surprised that you might prefer to be in her hands, Mr. Kelly, but I assure you, I will not buy anything from that woman, and neither will any respectable woman—”

  “Mrs. Allen, surely you don’t mean to insult the character of the person now in charge of this mercantile! Unless you wish to do your shopping in San Marcos, Austin or San Antonio. Nor do I appreciate your tone, ma’am. I think you owe Mrs. McMasters an apology, before you ask—nicely—if she will wait on you.”

  Eyes wide, mouth gaping, Mrs. Allen goggled at Ronan, seemingly unable to produce a reply. Because her instructions had not covered this eventuality? Marguerite wondered cynically. Browbeating the school board was one thing. Was Lydia McCleary really foolish enough to think she could maneuver Ronan Kelly by threatening his business?

  “If that is your answer,” Kelly said to the still-silent woman, “then I must ask you to leave my store. I hope you will find the goods elsewhere more to your liking. Good day, ma’am.”

  With that, he took her elbow and escorted her out.

  Irritation, remorse and outrage swirled through Marguerite as Ronan shut the door and walked back to her. “The sacrificial lamb, sent to test the waters,” she said.

  “A shame Lydia McCleary didn’t have the courage to come herself,” Ronan said, a cold fury in his eyes. “I would have enjoyed saying that to her.”

  “She’s going to try to split the town, you know. The folks she can persuade, or coerce, won’t shop here if I remain.”

  “She may try to split it, but she’s on much weaker ground on this one. I’ve heard a lot of mutters of discontent about her high-handed dealings with the school board. Quite a few have applauded me for finding another job for the poor, innocent widow. Besides, you truly won’t find a comparable selection of goods unless you go to Austin, San Marcos or San Antonio. And doing that would be mighty inconvenient for the ladies. The menfolk will let Lydia’s husband deal with her tantrums, and buy here.”

  “Where they can see the scarlet woman up close?” she said bitterly.

  Ronan smiled, seeming not nearly as upset over Lydia McCleary’s latest tactic as she was. “Now, it’s lying I’d be if I tried to tell you I’m not counting on your lovely face and figure to lure the gentlemen here more often than when Jesse ran the place. You’ll be good for business.”

  Swallowing hard, Marguerite made herself say, “You don’t think it would be better if I left the store? After all your kindness, I certainly don’t want to bring you more trouble.”

  “Hell, no! Excusing my language. You’ve already spruced up the place far more than Jesse, who could hardly be persuaded to dust a countertop. I like your ideas for the store, I like you, and I don’t hold with people being bullied, especially by a snobbish female who’s never done a lick of work, nor had a thought for anyone else’s needs, in her entire pampered life.”

  Unhappy as she was at having inadvertently caused such discord, Marguerite was fiercely glad that, with Ronan’s support, she’d be able to defy Lydia McCleary. A DeRivieras didn’t back down from a fight—and was used to winning.

  So was Ronan.

  “You won’t let Mrs. Allen shop here?”

  “Not unless she apologizes to you.”

  The enormity of the confrontation she was about to trigger in the town swept over her, washing anger away to expose a bedrock of anguish and regret. “I never meant to be so much trouble,” she muttered, fighting back tears.

  After a glance at her face, Ronan swore under his breath. He motioned toward the office. Feeling hollow and spent, she followed him in.

  He kicked the door closed behind her and swept her into his arms, kissing her fiercely. Drinking in his strength and protectiveness, she kissed him back just as fiercely, passion rising swiftly to replace the humiliation and regret.

  Need, sharpened by anguish, made her want to shut out the world by having him take her, here and now. But as she fumbled for his trouser buttons, he stayed her hand.

  She gave a little whimper of protest as he broke the kiss, but he shook his head. “Don’t mistake me,” he said roughly, his voice unsteady. “I want you more than my next breath. But when I make love to you again—and I will make love to you again—it will be in a private room. When I have all the time in the world to give you pleasure. And when you come to me, not so that passion can make you forget your troubles, but because you cannot resist me—us—any longer.”

  Angry, disappointed, she would have pulled away, but he held her close. “It’s not you who’s making the trouble, Marguerite-mine,” he whispered into her hair as he bound her against his chest. “You’ll face Lydia this time with not just me, but most of the town, supporting you. They’re good people, in the main, and they recognize character when they see it. Frankly, I think they’ll relish a chance to put Lydia McCleary in her place.”

  “Is there no way to avoid a confrontation?”

  “There’s one. I’ll talk to the man who could—and should—have put a stop to this long ago. Michael McCleary.”

  “But isn’t he a close friend? And won’t he feel obliged to support his wife? Bad enough that I’ve stirred up the town. I’d hate to be the cause of dissention between two old friends.”

  “We’ve been close for many years, yes. But that doxy has been leading him around by the nose ever since he married her. If he doesn’t take a stand and put a stop to it now, he never will. She may run him, but by the Devil’s arse, she’s not going to run me, or this town.”

  With that, he kissed her on the forehead, set her away from him, and strode out the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Far an
grier than he’d let Marguerite suspect, Ronan walked the several blocks to the Texas Bank & Loan. Striding through the front room, oblivious to the greetings from the tellers, he gave a perfunctory knock at the door and entered Michael McCleary’s office.

  “Booze, what a surprise!” his old friend said. “Won’t you—”

  “We need to talk,” Booze interrupted. “Given what’s been going on, I find it hard to believe my visit surprises you.”

  Unease—tinged with guilt—replaced the smile on his old friend’s face. “Have a seat,” Michael said, waving him toward a chair. “If I’m reading you right, this talk will require whiskey.” Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he pulled out a bottle and two glasses.

  “Liquor won’t smooth this over, Michael. You need to step in and tell that wife of yours to quit harassing Marguerite McMasters. Bad enough she tried to blacken the lady’s character and succeeded in intimidating the board into firing her. I’m just glad Jesse was itching to leave town, so I had another job to offer. Why shouldn’t she have the right to stay here and earn enough to run the ranch she and her late husband planned?”

  “I’m not so sure about Mrs. McMasters’s character,” Michael retorted. “If she’s not your kept woman, you’ve certainly done a good job making it look like she is. Naturally, the school board doesn’t want someone like that teaching their innocent children—I don’t want her near my sons, either! Can you deny that you visited the woman’s ranch and kissed her in front of the boarding house? If you can’t, it’s you who’s done the work of tarnishing her name, so don’t try to pin that on Lydia!”

  “I’ve stopped by the widow Wilson’s place any number of times when I’ve ridden out east—does that make her my woman, too? And if a simple kiss—publically delivered—turns an unmarried woman into a harlot, I doubt there are any virtuous females in this town. No, Michael, those accusations won’t wash. For reasons I won’t speculate on”—because your spoiled wife hates any female who rivals her beauty, and any man who resists her allure, he silently filled in—“Lydia has taken a dislike to Mrs. McMasters and done her best to turn everyone in town against her. Just today, she persuaded one of her friends to refuse to let Mrs. McMasters wait on her. Damn and blast, I’ve hired the woman to run the mercantile! The townspeople will have to let her serve them, or make their purchases elsewhere. You need to tell Lydia it’s time to stop this nonsense.”

  “Why do you immediately assume Lydia asked this person to avoid the McMasters woman?” Michael demanded, his voice rising and his face reddening. “Maybe the lady believed what she’d heard about McMasters, and made up her own mind.”

  “Eugenia Allen never had an original thought in her head, and she follows Lydia’s lead in everything!” Booze shot back, his voice raised as well. Trying for a more conciliatory approach, he continued in a quieter tone, “Believe me, I understand your wife is...difficult. I expect she misses the shops and admirers she had in Galveston. I know how charming she can be—when she wants to. But ever since the school board issue, I’ve heard more and more mutterings that she’s using more stick than honey to get her way. Texians don’t cotton to being told what to do—especially when someone threatens their home or their livelihood to make them do it. Having Lydia insinuate that people might find their loans called in or cancelled if they cross her tarnishes your buckle, too, Michael.”

  Before the banker could reply, Lydia McCleary herself entered the office. “I thought I heard voices! Ronan, how are you? We haven’t seen you in quite a while.” Smiling sweetly, she walked over to stand behind her husband—where, once stationed where Michael couldn’t see her face, her expression changed to one of smug defiance.

  “Booze has been telling me you’re harassing the McMasters woman,” Michael said.

  She gave her head a toss. “I won’t deny the woman is pretty enough to turn a man’s head—and maybe her charms have turned yours, Ronan. But I see her for what she is, and if I don’t like what I see, I have a right to my opinion.”

  “You don’t have a right to force that opinion on the whole town.”

  “I can’t help it if people who respect me give my opinions a great deal of weight,” she replied loftily.

  “Especially when you threaten them with having their loans called in?” he retorted. “Mr. Anderson said you told the school board members you would remember how they voted on the issue of firing Mrs. McMasters—that neither you nor your husband would forget. If that’s not blatant intimidation, what would you call it?”

  Some of her bravado faltered when her husband turned around to stare at her. “Did you tell the school board that, Lydia?”

  Confusion and something like panic crossed her face before she uttered a sob. “Of-of course not, darling! I don’t know why Ronan is trying to discredit me! He’s been so rude and unpleasant, ever since he took up with that McMasters woman.”

  Booze had to exercise all his self-control not to reach over and throttle her. “Mrs. McMasters’s charms have nothing to do with my opinion about this,” he ground out. “You’ve been persecuting her, using Michael’s position to coerce those who would oppose you, and you know it, Lydia.”

  Michael looked from his wife to Booze and back, his expression troubled. Obviously sensing her husband was weighing her words against those of his oldest friend—and perhaps unsure whose version would triumph, Lydia burst into tears. “Oh, Michael, I n-never meant to t-tell you this,” she said between sobs, “but...but I c-can’t hide it any l-longer. Before he had the McMasters woman to s-service him, Ronan pr-propositioned me! He’s been b-beastly to me ever since I refused him.” Taking a deep breath, looking up at her husband through tear-thickened lashes, she said, “That’s why he’s telling you all these falsehoods—even though I’ve tried so hard to forget the incident and be civil to him, so as not to come between friends!” Sobbing anew, she buried her face against her husband’s chest.

  If it weren’t for the bitter consequences of that little performance, Booze might have laughed. Accusing him of trying to seduce her, when that fancy slipper had always been on the other foot!

  Clasping his wife against him, Michael stared at Booze. “You made a play for my wife? You bastard!”

  “We’ve been friends for fifteen years,” Booze said, looking Michael straight in the eye. “Have you ever known me to trifle with a friend’s wife, or make advances to a woman who didn’t welcome them?”

  Michael had to know the answer to that. His gaze veering back and forth between Lydia and Booze, as if struggling to make a choice, he said, “Are you calling Lydia a liar?”

  “Of course he is!” Lydia cried, abruptly halting the waterworks. “Didn’t I tell you he’s trying to discredit me? Oh, Michael, what would I do if I didn’t have you to depend on?” Sobbing again, she clung to her husband, her rounded bosom thrust against his chest.

  With a sense of weary resignation, Booze watched as his long-time friend wavered. Finally, inevitably, Michael’s face hardened. “I think you’d better go. And I’m afraid you won’t be welcome here—or at our home—again.”

  Booze nodded. “If that’s your decision...” To abandon a friend rather than control a wife.

  From her position securely wrapped in her husband’s arms, Lydia sent Ronan a triumphant look over her shoulder.

  Sickened by the whole situation, and certain he’d earned the undying enmity of a devious woman who’d just shown she was and would be master of her husband, Booze said, “By my reckoning, you own about 40% of the mercantile and 30% of the trading goods of Kelly Enterprises.”

  Looking surprised and wary, Michael said, “I-I don’t have the exact figures to hand, but that sounds about right.”

  Booze nodded. “If partners can’t trust one another, what good is the partnership? I’ll buy out your shares. Determine the exact figures, then give me some time to stop by Austin and Houston. I’ll transfer the necessary funds into an account with your father’s bank in Galveston.”

  “You’re sure
you want to do this?” Michael asked plaintively. “End a partnership and give up half a lifetime’s friendship because of a deceitful woman?”

  “I wouldn’t, but you have. Goodbye, Michael.” Turning to Lydia, he said, “Mrs. McCleary, you might remember your catechism. To everyone comes a day of judgment, the good sisters always said.” With a heavy heart, Booze walked out of Michael’s office.

  By the look on Ronan’s face when he returned to the mercantile, Marguerite knew the talk hadn’t gone well. When he motioned her toward the office, she went without a word of inquiry.

  “You quarreled with Mr. McCleary,” she said flatly, after he’d closed the door behind them.

  He gave her a wry smile. “Well, it’s more that he quarreled with me. But it’s an irreconcilable difference of opinion, that’s for certain.”

  “Is it irreconcilable? Even if I were to leave—”

  “Hush! I’ll hear no talk of you leaving. You’re in the right, remember. Besides, there’d be no stopping Lydia McCleary’s mischief if she were allowed to win this one. But this time, she roped the wrong calf. She will lose, and a whole lot of folks are going to enjoy watching it.”

  “So she will split the town.”

  Ronan shook his head. “I’ve seen this day coming, ever since that Jezebel first curled her claws around Michael. I had hoped eventually he would realize what she was really like under the blonde curls, blue eyes and fine figure. That he’d love her still, maybe, but he’d put a stop to her nonsense and make her understand she couldn’t trample everyone to get what she wanted.”

  “But he didn’t stand up to her.”

  “Never before, and not this time, either.”

  “She won’t be pleased that you intervened. Will she try to turn her husband against you?” Marguerite asked, posing the question whose answer she dreaded most.