“Don’t quit,” Broc said. “You have to think of your family.”
Why did she have to think of her family all the time? When was somebody going to start thinking about her? It seemed everyone expected her to be responsible for everything, to solve every problem. Eddie was the only one who ever offered to help.
Broc, on the other hand, had volunteered to help with the ranch and with her work in the saloon. Now Corby was trying to force her to turn her back on him. She couldn’t do that. She didn’t know what the consequences would be to her or her family, but she would not work another evening, not even another minute, without Broc.
“You should take Broc’s advice,” Corby said, “and think of your family.”
“I am thinking of them. I’m always thinking of them.”
“If you were, you would have married me long ago,” Corby told her.
“I’ve told you several times I’m not ready to be married,” she said to Corby.
“I’ll wait, but I’m getting impatient. A man in my position needs a wife and family.”
He puffed out his skinny chest, and Amanda wondered how he could be so blind as to attempt to impress her with Broc in the same room.
“I wasn’t being truthful,” she continued. “I won’t marry you because I’m not in love with you.”
“I know that, but admiration and respect are much more important in a marriage than love. And financial security is most important of all. I can provide that.”
Corby didn’t understand that she didn’t want her marriage to be like a business agreement. She wanted it to be hot and passionate. She wanted to miss her husband when he wasn’t around. She wanted to long for his touch, to ache for his presence, to be haunted by his smile. She wanted simply thinking about him to make her so happy she would smile, even break out in unexplained laughter. She wanted to want to cook for him, to take care of him when he was sick, to make love with him and bear his children, to nourish his body as well as his soul.
“I don’t agree with you,” she said. “I think love is the most important quality to look for in a marriage. Without that, it might as well be a business arrangement.”
“But that’s what a marriage should be, a sensible arrangement between two like-minded people.”
Amanda turned to Broc. “Do you agree with Corby?”
“Why are you asking him?” Corby demanded. “No woman’s going to marry him.”
She didn’t bother to attempt to explain to Corby why he was wrong. He wouldn’t have understood.
“All the things Corby mentioned are important,” Broc said.
Amanda’s heart sank. How could he think that? Had she fallen in love with a man just like Corby?
“See, he agrees with me,” Corby said.
“A few years ago I might have agreed with you,” Broc corrected him, “but I don’t now.”
“Why?” Corby asked.
“I saw four of my friends overcome tremendous odds to make good marriages because love made them want to be with their wives so much they were willing to do whatever it took.” He turned to Amanda with a smile that caused her heart to skip a beat. “I agree with Amanda that a marriage without love is not worth having.”
“Is that what you were saying?” Corby asked Amanda.
She looked at Broc rather than Corby. “Yes. That’s exactly what I was saying.”
She had wondered what Broc felt for her, but now she saw the answer in his eyes. He loved her as much as she loved him. She had hoped, she had dreamed, but she’d never been sure. Now the realization of his love filled her heart with so much happiness, she felt she could hardly breathe.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Corby’s shocked, horrified voice penetrated her cocoon of happiness.
“Yes, I am.”
“He’s nothing but a common cowboy with a face that will give you nightmares.”
“I love his face,” Amanda said.
“Do you mean that?” Broc looked desperate to believe her but afraid to leave himself open to hurt and disappointment.
“How many times have I told you I think your face is a testament to your courage and integrity?”
“I was afraid to let myself believe you.”
“You’re crazy!” Corby yelled at Amanda. “If you marry him, you’ll be the laughingstock of Cactus Bend.”
“You’re wrong,” Amanda said. “Everyone will be jealous of me, because they’ll see I have found something wonderful.”
Broc took Amanda’s hands in his. “I never thought anybody could feel that way about me. I know what I look like, but—”
Amanda pulled one hand from his grasp and caressed his disfigured cheek. “I can’t imagine you looking any other way.” She withdrew both hands and stepped back. “But you’re leaving in a few days.”
“I have to go to jail, but I’ll come back if you want me to.”
“He’s going to jail!” Corby’s voice sliced its way between them. “You’re thinking about marrying a criminal?”
“He’s not a criminal,” Amanda said, her gaze still locked on Broc. “He just got into a fight.”
“How many people did he kill?” Corby’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“None,” Broc said. “I broke a man’s arm for heckling me about my face.”
“Are you willing to marry a man who’ll be jeered at by everyone who sees him?”
“No person of character would jeer at him,” Amanda said. “If they do, they’ll have to answer to me.”
“Get out of my office!” Corby shouted. “Out of my saloon! Out of my town! You’ll never work for me again. Gary, either. I wouldn’t give either one of you a job if you were on the street and penniless.”
His cruel words shattered Amanda’s aura of happiness. “This has nothing to do with Gary. He doesn’t even like Broc.”
“I’m glad to know he has more sense than his sister, but I don’t want any Liscomb here ever again.” He marched over to the door, flung it open, and waited for them to leave.
Amanda let her gaze settle on Corby for so long he started to fidget. “I used to think you loved me, but now I know I was just another piece of property, something to enhance your standing in the community.”
“I don’t need you,” Corby said, angrily. “I can do without you just fine.”
“Good, because you’ll have to.”
Amanda walked out of the office and out of the saloon without stopping. The magnitude of what had just happened didn’t hit her until she reached the street. “What am I going to do?” she asked, turning to Broc. “Now we’ll lose the ranch for certain.”
“Corby would never have fired me if you hadn’t made him so mad,” Gary shouted at his sister.
“Don’t you care that he fired Broc and told me I had to go back to waiting tables?” Amanda asked her brother.
“What’s wrong with that?” Gary demanded. “It’s what you used to do.” Gary turned so sharply in his striding about the parlor, he sent one of their mother’s small rugs skittering across the room.
“With you gone, I needed the extra money I made singing.”
“Well, now you still need it and don’t have any way to get it,” Gary said. “That’s how much good falling in love with him did.” Gary indicated Broc with an angry jab of his index finger.
“What are you talking about?” their mother demanded. She’d listened with only mild concern while Gary accused Amanda of ruining the family, but the possibility Amanda had fallen in love riveted her attention.
“Amanda told Corby she had fallen in love with Broc,” Gary said. “And he said he’s fallen in love with her, too.”
“Amanda, tell me this isn’t true,” her mother pleaded.
“I think it’s wonderful.”
They turned to see Priscilla standing in the doorway.
“You shouldn’t have been listening at the door,” her mother said sternly.
“I was on my way to the kitchen when I heard what Gary said. I think Amanda is
really lucky. Broc is a wonderful man.”
“But he’s scarred,” her mother said.
“I’m big, ungainly, and not pretty like Amanda,” Priscilla said. “Does that mean I don’t deserve to be loved?”
“I love you,” Gary said.
Everyone ignored him.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Priscilla said.
When she turned to leave, Gary repeated, “I love you.” He half rose out of his seat to follow her. When she didn’t turn around or answer him, he slumped back. “This is all your fault,” he threw at Broc. “It wasn’t like this before you got here, telling us we were in debt, riling Carruthers until he’s even more angry at you than he is at us. Now you’ve turned Corby against us as well. Anything else you want to do before you go off to jail?”
“I wish you were going to jail instead of Broc,” Eddie said to his brother.
“I know you don’t mean that,” his mother said.
“Yes, I do,” Eddie replied. “Broc lets me ride with him and never tells me I’m stupid or says I’m too little to do things.”
Gary erupted from the chair. “Go to hell, all of you,” he shouted on his way out of the house.
“Gary Livingston Liscomb, come back here this minute,” his mother ordered.
Gary didn’t slow down. The sound of the back door slamming was proof he had no intention of obeying his mother’s summons.
For a time no one spoke. Finally, her mother looked at Amanda and asked, “What are we going to do now?”
“I’m not sure. I never thought Corby would fire Broc after the skit was so successful. He tried to blame it on Carruthers’s threats to burn him out, but it was really because he’s jealous.”
“If you had married him, we wouldn’t be in this trouble,” her mother said.
“No, it would be worse. You’d be faced with running a ranch that you know nothing about, because you’re too proud to be connected with a saloon. Meanwhile, I’d be tied to a man I don’t love, one I’m not even sure I like.”
“I don’t like him,” Eddie said.
“Do you like anybody?” his mother snapped.
“I like Broc,” Eddie said with a big grin.
“I know that. Do you like anybody else?”
He thought for a moment. “I like Amanda and Leo. That’s all.”
Eddie wasn’t aware of what he’d done, but his mother looked stricken.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Amanda asked Broc.
“You’ve got just one crop of calves on the ground and another to be born next year. Do you have anything you can sell so you can hold on for at least two more years?”
Every eye in the room focused on one or more pieces of furniture before gradually settling on her mother, who squirmed under the collective gazes before she raised her eyes to face them.
“It would be pointless to sell my furniture,” she said. “I’d never get half of what it’s worth. Besides, it’s Amanda’s inheritance.”
“I don’t want your furniture.” Amanda realized immediately she should have said she didn’t need the furniture, but she couldn’t retract her words now.
“This was my mother’s furniture,” her mother intoned. “Your father hauled every piece of it from Mississippi because he was certain you would value it as I have.”
Amanda didn’t value the furniture, and everybody knew it. “It’s not a question of whether I value it or not. It’s a question of being able to hold on to this ranch, of having a way to support all of us, of having something to leave Eddie and Gary as well as me.”
“I want the horses,” Eddie said. “Gary can have the cows.”
“There is another possible solution,” Broc said.
“What?” her mother asked.
“You could sell the bull. By using the calves you have now and the ones you’ll have next year, you can still upgrade your herd.”
“Do you think that will work?” her mother asked.
“It depends on a number of things, but you have to do one thing before anything else.”
“What is that?”
“You have to find out for sure whether you owe money to Ella Sibley. If you do, the judge will sell the bull for you.”
The familiar sinking feeling was back in the pit of Amanda’s stomach. She had managed to put the debt out of her mind because she was certain it was a mistake, but if a judge had proof to back up his belief, then he could do what he wanted with their property.
“Of course we don’t owe that woman any money,” her mother said. “My husband would have told me. He never kept anything from me.”
Amanda wondered how much of that was true. Her mother never kept anything from the family. She considered her wants to be of sufficient importance that everyone should know of them, but her father had played his cards close to the vest. He always said a businessman couldn’t be successful if everyone knew his secrets.
Amanda asked Broc, “How can we find out the truth?”
“I have to be back to Crystal Springs in a couple of days. I can go see Mrs. Sibley. If I learn anything useful, I’ll find a way of letting you know.”
It took Amanda only one second to make her decision. “I’ll go with you.”
Ella Sibley was a charming, elderly lady who lived in a modest but comfortably furnished house two blocks from the main street in Crystal Springs. “My husband liked to ranch, but I prefer living in town,” she told Broc and Amanda with a warm smile. “I’d rather have neighbors who talk than moo.”
The moment Amanda entered Mrs. Sibley’s house and was welcomed with a cup of coffee and two sugar cookies, she was certain the debt was real. The flowered paper on the walls, the lace curtains at the windows, the starched crochet decorating the room, even the several daguerreotypes divided among three tables in the room—everything spoke of a woman who lived her life with integrity and a welcoming smile. Her powder white hair and diminutive stature made her look like everyone’s grandmother.
“That must make it a bit uncomfortable living in Texas,” Broc said.
“Not at all,” Ella said with one of her charming smiles. “There are a lot of men who want nothing to do with cows.”
“It’s a good thing not everyone agrees with you,” Broc said with an equally charming smile, “or Texas would still be as broke as it was when the war ended.”
Despite her distaste for cows, it soon became apparent Ella knew quite a bit about cows, ranching, and Texas. She was as interested in what Broc and his partners were doing on their ranch south of San Antonio as she was in what his friend was doing on his farm in California.
“Do you think your friend in California would adopt me as his grandmother?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye. “You make his farm sound like a perfect place to live.”
“I’m sure he’d love to have you.” Broc laughed. “And there’s a nice little town where you can get away from the smell of cows.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t notice the smell after it was filtered through acres of flowering fruit trees in bloom.” She sighed. “I can still remember an apple tree next to the house where I grew up.” She walked over to a window and pulled back the filmy curtain. “I’ve planted apple trees all around the house. I don’t care if they have any apples as long as they bloom every spring.”
It was impossible for Amanda not to like Ella Sibley. She felt guilty when she realized she wished her mother was more like Ella.
“There’s something important we need to talk to you about,” Broc said.
“I knew there had to be,” Ella replied with a sly grin. “Beautiful young people don’t waste their time with an old woman unless they must.”
“Then the young people in Crystal Springs are missing an invaluable opportunity,” Broc told her.
“You’re a charming young man with a silver tongue,” Ella said, smiling even more broadly. “Now tell me your business. I expect you’ll be more honest when you talk about that.”
“It’s really my business,”
Amanda said. “Broc just got caught up in it by accident.”
Ella was too much of a lady to betray her curiosity, but Amanda knew she must be curious.
“I allowed myself to lose my temper when a man here in Crystal Springs took exception to my face,” Broc said.
“Felix Yant,” Ella said with disgust. “I heard about what he did. I wish you’d broken more than his arm.”
Broc grinned. “I think the judge agreed with you, but he couldn’t say so. He said I didn’t have to go to jail if I could collect the debt owed you.”
“It’s my family that owes the debt,” Amanda said, “only we don’t know anything about it. Before my father died, he told us he had no debts. Broc and I came here hoping you had some document that would help us solve this mystery.”
“It’s no mystery,” Ella said. “Your father bought our stud bull after my husband died. I was to be paid fifty dollars a month until the total was paid. I was paid for less than a year. Then the payments stopped.”
“Do you have a bill of sale, a written agreement, or something we could look at?” Amanda asked. “My family has nothing.”
“How odd,” Ella said. “Of course you can look at the agreement. I gave the judge the original, but he returned it two days ago. I’ll get it for you.” Ella walked over to one of the tables bearing the daguerreotypes. She set all of them aside, lifted the top of the table, and took out a paper lying on top. “You’re fortunate you didn’t ask for it a month ago. It would have taken me hours to find it.”
“Let Broc see it,” Amanda said. “My father shared a lot with me, but nothing to do with business.” She watched uneasily as Broc took the document and began to read through it. She wasn’t reassured when his gaze intensified and his lips pursed in an expression of anger.
“The bastard!” he muttered. “The thieving, lying bastard.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Who’s a bastard?” Amanda asked.
“Yes, tell us both,” Ella said. “Nothing exciting has happened to me since a longhorn hooked one of our cowhand’s pants and ripped them from top to bottom. The best-equipped young man I’ve ever seen.”
When Love Comes Page 22
