This Calder Range

by Janet Dailey

  “I didn’t do it for him,” Lorna insisted sharply, irritated that he should say such a thing and all the while aware of the way her flesh tingled under his touch. “Besides, I don’t even know that he’s bringing Lady Crawford.”

  “He is,” Benteen stated. “And he’ll notice how you look.”

  “I can’t help that,” she protested as his fingers forced their way under the already strained material of the dress’s neckline and followed its dipping line. “Why must you keep harping about him?”

  “He wants to do what I’m doing right now with you.” The flat of his hand spread across the small of her back as his fingers finished their climb to her shoulder. “He’d like to take you away from me. You know that, too.”

  His eyes challenged her to deny it, but she couldn’t. “There isn’t any reason for you to be concerned about that.”

  “Isn’t there?” His hand applied pressure to bring her against the lower half of his body. “Then tell me you don’t like him.”

  “But I do like him—as a friend,” Lorna qualified her answer, but refused to lie about her feelings for Bull Giles.

  “He’ll use that someday, Lorna,” Benteen warned. “That’s why he’s hanging around this area—because of you. Nothing else is keeping him here. You can’t trust him.”

  “You’re exaggerating.” But there was a grain of doubt within her. “This isn’t the time to talk about it anyway. They’ll be coming any—”

  “They,” Benteen cut across her words. “You are expecting him to come.”

  “Benteen, please don’t do this.” He had no cause to be jealous, but she couldn’t seem to convince him of it.

  His fingers dug into her shoulderbone to pull her the rest of the way to him. There was a fire in his kiss, as if he wanted to sear his brand on her lips and mark her the way he marked all the rest of his possessions. When he lifted his head, her breath was coming quickly. She was angered and aroused at the same time. The contradiction showed in the fiery sparkle of her eyes and the swollen softness of her lips. Pivoting, Lorna turned to survey the damages in the mirror.

  “There isn’t time for that,” Benteen said. “The carriage was approaching when I came in.”

  She whirled around, furious with him for destroying her calm when their arrival was imminent. There was a satisfied glint in his eye as he studied her. Closing her mouth tightly, Lorna brushed past him to walk swiftly to the door. She could hear the rattle of the wheels outside.

  The carriage was just pulling to a stop when Lorna opened the door. An inner sense told her that Benteen was a step behind her. She squared her shoulders against him as she walked out from the cabin to greet her special guest. The boys were already running forward to meet the visitors. When Lorna noticed the grass stain on the seat of Webb’s short pants, her irritation increased.

  Bull Giles swung down from the driver’s seat, his gaze running over Lorna. She was conscious of it, but she wasn’t able to meet his eyes, not when she knew that Benteen was keenly observing both of them. It created a strain in her manner when she wanted to make a good impression on her afternoon guest.

  She called Webb and Arthur to her side as Bull Giles moved to open the carriage door, offering his hand to assist the woman seated in back. When Lady Crawford stepped out, Lorna was struck again by the woman’s regal bearing, an effect made more dramatic by the sheer silk blouse and long satin skirt, both jet-black. She looked older than she had the last time Lorna had seen her—age lines showed around her dark, nearly black eyes—but oddly no less beautiful.

  As Lady Crawford moved gracefully forward to greet her, Lorna’s instinct told her to curtsy, but Benteen’s hand closed on the curve of her waist as if to check the movement. She stiffened slightly under his firm grip and remained erect.

  “It’s a great pleasure to see you again, your ladyship.” Lorna welcomed the woman with a proffered hand that was briefly taken and released.

  “Please. Let’s dispense with the formalities on this meeting. I would like you to call me Elaine,” she requested as her gaze swung pointedly to Benteen. “This is your husband?”

  While his wife made the introductions, Elaine watched her son’s face closely but she saw no recognition there. It wasn’t surprising really, considering how small he had been and how much she had changed from a simple Texas girl to a member of England’s ruling class. He showed a marked disinterest in her, yet she sensed a tension coming from him and wondered at its cause.

  The two little boys were introduced to her. The heritage of Calder blood showed strongly in both of them, and Elaine remarked on it. Inwardly she was uncomfortable with the idea of having grandchildren. Growing old was something she fought, and the children were proof of her advancing age, regardless of the lies the mirror told.

  “Mr. Giles.” She partially turned to address the guide. “Would you fetch me the two presents on the carriage seat?” Certain of his obedience, she kept her attention focused on the couple, her glance straying more often to Benteen. “I brought you each a little something to show my appreciation for your hospitality today. I wasn’t aware of your two children or I would have included a small gift for them.”

  “You shouldn’t have brought us anything,” Lorna protested.

  “My wife is right. We must refuse,” Benteen stated with a show of that stubborn Calder pride Elaine remembered so well.

  “Nonsense.” With an autocratic gesture she motioned for Giles to hand them their gifts. “They are merely token presents. A jar of lotion for your wife and some cigars for you. Mere trifles, I assure you.”

  Benteen grudgingly accepted the gift while his wife was much less reluctant. But Elaine’s interest was caught by the glance he shot the guide, Giles. It was dark with suspicion and mistrust when Giles presented his wife with her gift. Elaine was quick to note the way his wife avoided looking directly at the guide. It seemed they were not quite the happy family unit that they had first appeared to be.

  “Would you like to come into the cabin?” Lorna invited. “I fixed some tea and cakes.”

  “I should like that,” Elaine accepted, then paused to glance at the house being constructed on the rise of the plains. “I couldn’t help noticing that you’re building a new home. It’s a very imposing structure. Perhaps later you might show me through it?”

  “The carpenters are just starting work inside, so there isn’t very much to see, but I’d be happy to give you a tour of it,” Lorna agreed with an air of pride. “The cabin is going to seem very small and crude in comparison.”

  “Mommy, please, can we sit in the c’raige?” Webb-pleaded, unable to contain his eagerness a second longer.

  Lorna tried to distract him. “Wouldn’t you like to come inside and have one of those fancy cakes I made?”

  “I wanta sit in the c’raige,” he insisted stubbornly.

  When Lorna hesitated, Lady Crawford spoke up. “If the carriage can survive the journey over this rough country, two little boys aren’t likely to harm it.” Children had always been more of a nuisance to have around than anything else, so she wasn’t sorry that they were more interested in the carriage than her.

  “I know the boys wouldn’t intentionally do anything—” Lorna began.

  Bull Giles interrupted her. “I’ll watch the boys for you, Mrs. Calder, and see that they stay out of trouble.”

  A brief but awkward silence followed his offer as Lorna glanced uneasily in Benteen’s direction, but he said nothing. The corners of her mouth trembled with the effort it took to smile.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Giles. Thank you,” she accepted.

  “Come on, boys. Let’s go see the carriage.” The two hurried to join him.

  Lorna had been concerned about entertaining someone of Lady Crawford’s class and breeding, yet the woman made her feel remarkably at ease over tea. The conversation flowed smoothly, except for the way Benteen held himself aloof from it. Lorna was conscious that Lady Crawford had noticed it, from the many times she l
et her gaze wander in his direction.

  The happy voices and laughter of the boys carried into the cabin, an assurance that Bull was keeping them entertained. Lorna sensed that Benteen wasn’t pleased by that. Perhaps she shouldn’t have allowed them to stay outside, but Webb had acquired such a temper lately that she hadn’t wanted to risk one of his stormy tantrums in front of Lady Crawford.

  After waiting until she had deemed that her social obligation had been fulfilled, Elaine suggested they tour the new house. Her plan went awry when they went outside and both children wanted to accompany them to the building site. She thought they had been safely pawned off onto the guide, but it seemed she was wrong.

  The interior of the house was a maze of skeletal timbers with chunks of sawed wood and stacks of lumber lying everywhere. To the small boys it was a giant playroom. Their running and shrieking seemed to add to the confusion. In spite of it all, Elaine could visualize exactly how the house would look, from the formal dining room to the serving area in the large kitchen. It had the potential to be magnificent by Western standards, and she knew it.

  “This is going to be the study,” Lorna explained as they completed the circling tour of the ground floor, which had brought them to the room off the large entryway.

  There was a loud thud behind them, followed by a shriek of pain and fright from one of the boys. Elaine was the only one who didn’t react with alarm as both Lorna and Benteen hurried to the younger child, screaming where he had fallen. His stubby legs hadn’t managed to lift his foot over a board. It had tripped him, the fall scraping both knees on the rough wood floor.

  Benteen started to pick him up, but Arthur wanted his mommy and sent up a fresh wail, stretching his clutching hands to her. She lifted the toddler into her arms and cuddled him close, rocking him slightly in silent comfort.

  “Is Arthur hurt?” The older boy strained to see the injury. “Is he bleeding? Can I see?”

  “He just scraped his knees,” Lorna replied, then glanced apologetically to Elaine. “Would you excuse me?”

  “Certainly,” she agreed with alacrity. “Your husband can show me the rest of the house.” She turned away to conceal the satisfaction that gleamed in her eyes and crossed the room to the massive fireplace. She listened to the sound of footsteps, separating Benteen’s from those of Lorna and the children as they left through the front door.

  “The stairway to the second floor isn’t completed,” Benteen informed her. “There isn’t any more of the house to see.”

  Elaine tipped her head toward her shoulder to study him with a sidelong look. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?” she murmured.

  “I beg your pardon.” There was a quizzical lift of one eyebrow, yet his curiosity seemed forced. It was obvious his mind was elsewhere.

  “I didn’t expect that you would.” Her gaze returned to the fireplace. “Your father used to keep a picture of me on the mantel. I often wondered how long he left it there.”

  When she looked at him again, she saw the whiteness under his skin as his facial muscles tautened with cold shock. Elaine wasn’t surprised by the bitter hatred that blazed suddenly in his eyes.

  “It was there until the day he died.” His voice rumbled the answer, yet his control remained unshaken.

  “Seth always was a hopeless romantic,” Elaine declared on a throaty laugh, then let her gaze wander over the half-finished house. “Perhaps if he had built me a home like this, I wouldn’t have left him. Is that why you’re building it, Benteen? Are you afraid of losing your wife?”

  “I don’t know why you’re here, but you can get the hell out!” His low-pitched voice vibrated with the effort to contain his wrath. “Go back to your fancy lords and ladies. You aren’t wanted here.”

  “I haven’t come to beg your forgiveness,” she replied with a trace of amusement. “I don’t regret running away from your father and leaving you. When I left Texas with Con Dunshill, I never once looked back.”

  “Do you think I give a damn?” Benteen challenged thickly. “I am not my father. You walked out of my life and you can stay out.”

  Her dark gaze studied him unmoved by his bitter hatred of her. “You aren’t like your father,” she agreed. “I knew that when I saw you in Dodge City. You are like me, Benteen. Just like me.”

  “You’re an adulterous, scheming bitch. You don’t even have the scruples of a whore.” Contempt and derision twisted his features as he spat the accusations at her.

  “And you are ruthless, ambitious, and intelligent—all the things you claim I am. In a man, they are qualities to be admired,” she reasoned. “But if a woman possesses them, she is a scheming, gold-digging bitch. I plead guilty to all three. What now, Benteen? Aren’t you just a little bit curious why I’m here after all this time?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “You do want to know. You just don’t want to admit it.” She smiled with certainty. “So I’ll tell you. Since my husband’s death—”

  “I assume you mean my father,” Benteen broke in coldly. “He was your legal husband.”

  “Add bigamy to the charges against me, then.” She shrugged aside the technicality. “Since the death of the Earl of Crawford, whom I had been living with these past years as his wife, I have found English society too confining. I am not quite ready to sit on a shelf, as they would have me do. Ever since I saw you in Dodge City, the idea has been in the back of my mind that we’d make a great team, you and I.”

  “I’m not interested in a partner, and I certainly wouldn’t pick you.”

  “I am an extremely wealthy woman, although I doubt if that’s of any interest to you at the moment. But later, after you’ve had time to get over the … shock—shall we call it?—of seeing your mother again, there’s a business proposition I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “I don’t have a mother,” Benteen stated flatly.

  Her shoulder lifted in an expressive shrug of indifference. “I’d much rather be your partner, but we’ll talk about that another time.”

  “There won’t be another time, and I’m not interested in any proposition of yours—business or otherwise. I suggest you leave before I throw you out.” There was no softening of his hard, embittered features.

  “I’ll leave.” She smiled coolly. “There’s just one more thing before I go.”

  “Then say it and be done with it,” he snapped, showing the first rush of impatience.

  “I believe you know a man named Judd Boston.”

  “What about him?” His dark eyes were guarded.

  “It seems he has a friend in the land office who had told him about three claims that have not had the necessary improvements made to fulfill the requirements of the land act. All rights and title will be denied the present claimant, and Mr. Boston will be quietly taking them over.”

  “Very interesting, but hardly surprising. That’s the way Boston works,” Benteen replied.

  She moved slowly toward him, gliding in rustling satin skirts. “Ah, but those three claims are yours, Benteen.” The uncertainty of disbelief flickered across his face. “So you see, I can be very helpful to you—in many ways.” Elaine smiled knowingly and laid her hand lightly against his cheek, stroking her fingers across it in a brief caress. “I’ll be in touch in a few days, and we’ll talk about that proposition.”

  After she walked by him to the door, Benteen remained motionless. The touch of her hand had brought a pain that splintered through him like shattering glass. For a split second he was a little boy again, wanting the warmth of a mother’s hand and desperately wishing the beautiful woman in the picture would come back to him. That was before he realized his dream mother didn’t exist.

  Slowly he turned and walked to the front door, where she waited to be escorted to her carriage. Benteen didn’t look at her. He tried to expel her existence from his mind. Although he knew her to be in her late forties, she didn’t look it. She was too elegant and sophisticated to ever be considered matronly.

  Ma
ny times in his youth he had planned what he would say to her if she ever came back. Some of it he had done—calling her names and denying her, ordering her out of his life. Yet, the sensation of her touch lingered on his cheek. He ached from it. But no one could see it. His hard features had been too well schooled in concealing the privacy of his emotions.

  The southern exposure of the house had them walking into the sun. The sky was a huge chunk of blue, crowning the range in all directions. Benteen surveyed it with a slow, sweeping gaze, aware of the land’s raw malevolence that could give and take by turns. The warning from his mother of Judd Boston’s plans came whirling into his thoughts. He had been too confident, too sure of himself.

  When they reached the carriage, Lorna was just coming out of the cabin with Webb at her side. Bull Giles followed her, carrying little Arthur in the hook of one arm. Despite the skinned knees and the traces of tears on his cheek, the toddler seemed quite happy on his lofty perch.

  “You’re a brave boy,” Bull Giles was saying, neither he nor Lorna noticing the pair standing by the carriage.

  “Just clumsy,” Lorna laughed.

  “Give him a chance to grow into his feet,” Bull insisted. But when he smiled at Lorna, his glance encountered Benteen.

  Beside him, his mother remarked, “Mr. Giles appears to be very much at home here. Is he a close friend of yours?”

  “No.” Benteen pulled all expression from his voice as he watched Bull set Arthur on the ground. The natural smile had left Lorna’s lips, replaced by a more self-conscious one. “He’s my wife’s friend, not mine.”

  All is not well, Elaine thought to herself as Lorna came forward. She studied her son’s wife with a little more interest. Lorna was an attractive, well-developed young woman. The hard work this country demanded from a female had kept her figure intact, despite the birth of two children. In the right clothes, she could be stunning. There was intelligence in her eyes, yet she had retained a certain vulnerability. Elaine saw that Lorna still possessed a child’s desire to trust, which made her easy to be deceived.

  “I’m glad your child’s injury wasn’t serious,” Elaine remarked when Lorna reached her, with little Arthur trotting to keep up.