The Lover

by Genell Dellin

  My husband, she’d said, so fast he couldn’t even form a sentence on his tongue. It made him grit his teeth.

  It made his headache blossom into its original glory.

  But, knowing what he knew of her from this short acquaintance, if he wanted to accomplish anything here, he’d better go along with the charade. But only for the moment. Later, when he could get her alone, he’d tell her in no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t be necessary to pretend that they were married because she wouldn’t be going up the trail at all.

  “Right,” he said, “we’re putting together an outfit. Are you men available?”

  It took a couple of minutes for one of them to get his tongue working. It was the taller one with the saddle. None of them looked to be more than twenty years old, if that much.

  “To tell you the truth,” the boy finally said. “We’re on our way right now to see a man about a drive.”

  Eagle Jack opened his mouth but he never had a chance to get a word out. She was way too quick for him.

  “We’ll pay more than that man will,” Susanna said. “Is he offering you the going rate?”

  Eagle Jack wanted to slap his hand across her mouth and hold it there. He set his jaw. They had an understanding to reach and they were going to reach it very, very soon or he would be gone.

  With this kind of aggravation, it didn’t seem so important that no one could ever say that he broke his word. His reputation be damned if he had to put up with this for another minute, much less a thousand miles.

  “How much more?” the young cowboy said.

  Eagle Jack gave Susanna a look that, to his surprise, actually stilled her tongue. He spoke before she could recover.

  “Two dollars a month more,” he said.

  The cowboy looked at his companions.

  Without a word passed among them, he turned back to Eagle Jack.

  “Done,” he said. “Marvin Dwyer’s my name.”

  He held out his hand to shake. Eagle Jack shook with all of them and introduced himself as they spoke their names.

  Shyly, they tipped their hats in Susanna’s direction, but Eagle Jack couldn’t bring himself to introduce her as his wife. They had that impression already. And it wouldn’t be necessary, anyhow. By this time tomorrow she’d be settled on her own ranch again, and he and these boys would be pushing her cattle north.

  “Where should we meet you at, Mr. Sixkiller? And when?” Marvin asked.

  He shifted his saddle to his other hand and waited.

  “At Brushy Creek Ranch,” Eagle Jack said, “as soon as you can.”

  He smiled. He had actually beat Susanna to the punch for once.

  Then his triumph vanished. He didn’t know how to direct them to get there, not even whether the ranch was east or north or south or west of town.

  Great. There was nothing like a trail boss who didn’t know where he was going.

  “I’ll let Miss Susanna tell y’all what road to take,” he said. “I have some business to see to and we all need to get out there right away.”

  He turned on his heel and left her standing there with the crew she’d hired. Great jumping Jehoshaphat, he’d never known a woman to talk so much—or interrupt so much—and he’d known a lot of women. He couldn’t wait to get her back to her ranch and get away from her for a while.

  He couldn’t wait to be alone. Some peace and quiet might do wonders for his head.

  Yet he hadn’t been in the shop long enough for anything but to greet the proprietor, scan the used saddles, and decide that his stolen one wasn’t there when Susanna followed him in.

  “Mr. Sixkiller,” she said, “the new hands asked me to tell you that they’ll start for the ranch in an hour. Maybe less. I asked them to go ahead and take delivery of the herd if we aren’t there yet.”

  He froze.

  Then he crossed the shop to her with a whole new fire in his belly. She was the most aggravating woman on God’s green earth but that didn’t mean she had to be the dumbest. If he was going to put up with this nonsense, he was going to accomplish something. Left alone, she didn’t even have a pair of decent gloves and pretty soon she wouldn’t have anything at all.

  “When the hell will you ever learn to let me do what you hired me to do?” he said. He kept his voice low so the saddlemaker wouldn’t hear and that took all the strength he had. He wanted to yell at her at the top of his lungs. “How’ll you like it if they drive that herd off onto somebody else’s place and sell them? Or just start up the trail with your cattle all by themselves? Are they trail branded?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and full of startlement.

  He was standing closer to her than he’d realized. Her scent was fresher and crisper than he’d realized. And her eyes were bluer.

  But he couldn’t think about that.

  “Your busy little tongue is going to create a disaster if you don’t learn to control it,” he said. “Damn it, Susanna. I can’t do the job you hired me to do. I can’t even get a word in edgewise.”

  “You walked off and left us,” she said. “You weren’t trying to talk right then.”

  But he couldn’t pursue the subject for listening to the echo of the last question he’d asked her. He had to know.

  “Are your cattle trail branded, Susanna?”

  “No,” she said, “they’re not trail branded, but it’s all right. Those boys didn’t look—”

  His headache and his weariness grew heavier. Great. He also had to brand the herd, besides holding and counting it.

  “They may be rustlers by profession for all you know,” he said. “Have you ever seen a rustler?”

  “We-ell, no, but…”

  “Then you don’t know what one looks like,” he said. “Now—right now—we have an agreement to make, and if you can’t live up to it, I’m gone.”

  Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “If you’re gone, I’m on your trail,” she said. “I invested my last money in you, Eagle Jack Sixkiller, and you gave me your word.”

  “And you gave me yours,” he said. “You promised me and all those other poor old down-and-out boys in the jail that whoever you hired as trail boss would be free to use his own judgment.”

  “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 reconsider 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 bis
cuits 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?

  Chapter 3

  During 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.