Letter to a Lonesome Cowboy

by Jackie Merritt

  The horse’s head bobbed up and down, as though he was agreeing. Mack giggled like the boy he was. “Man, I wish old Kip could see me now.” He’d been meaning to write to Kip, but until today he’d been working with the men and coming in too tired to do anything except eat and go to bed.

  Today he wasn’t tired at all, and he wanted to ride a horse more than he’d ever wanted anything. Rand had promised to teach him how to ride when he had time, but what was so complicated about it? Seemed to Mack you just got on and let the horse do the work.

  Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he slipped between the rails. He felt a foot taller inside the corral, as tall as Rand and J.D., and he just knew that Midnight would let him get on his back.

  He coaxed the horse to stand lengthwise along the fence, climbed onto the first rail and then, hanging on to Joe’s mane, threw his right leg over the animal’s back. Joe calmly sidestepped and Mack landed face-first in the mud.

  He came up sputtering. “Jeez…jeez…what’d you do that for?”

  He was muddy from head to foot and felt like a moron. Suzanne would ask how he’d gotten so muddy, and he’d have to come up with a lie, because he sure wasn’t going to tell her the truth.

  Going into the barn, he found a towel and wiped the mud off his face. Remembering Daisy and her pups, he tried to forget what Midnight had done to him and went to sit with the dogs. At least they were friendly.

  The mud gradually dried on his clothes.

  It was long after dark when Suzanne heard the men coming in. Dinner had been ready for hours. She’d kept it warm but knew it couldn’t possibly be as good as it would have been two hours ago.

  Carrying his boots, Rand walked into the kitchen. Suzanne was seated at the counter, nursing a cup of tea. He couldn’t read her expression, maybe because she wore none. There was a blankness to her face that disturbed him.

  “Hi,” he said cautiously. “Are you all right? I heard you had quite an experience today.”

  “J.D. told you,” she said dully. “Do you want to know something, Rand? I walked right past Pinky only a few minutes before he charged Dale.”

  Rand felt himself go pale. “You were outside.”

  “Taking a walk. Janie Carson arrived and we came inside for cake and coffee. Have you figured out how that brute got out of his pen?”

  He didn’t know what to tell her. Scaring her more than she already was went against his grain. On the other hand, he might have been wrong about keeping the truth from her. He’d thought her only danger had come from the dynamite, and he’d been wrong about that.

  He made his decision. “Someone deliberately opened the gate on Pinky’s pen,” he said quietly.

  She stared. It took a moment to assimilate what he’d told her. “Why would anyone do that? From what Janie said, it’s common knowledge that Pinky is a dangerous animal.”

  “He is.”

  “And yet someone turned him loose. I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” He paused for the briefest of moments, praying she wouldn’t ask questions. He could tell her part of the truth, but not all of it. “I’m going to go get cleaned up for supper.”

  He walked past her, then on impulse turned around and came back to stand behind her. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, and leaned forward to press a kiss to her hair.

  He felt a shiver go through her and knew it was because of him, because they affected each other so strongly. His emotions suddenly churned. Losing Suzanne would be like losing the sun. She had brought something into his life that he hadn’t let himself hope for. He was a different man than the one who had met her at the door that first snowy night. He…loved her.

  Facing his feelings was a shock. He needed time to think. “See you in a few,” he said, then left.

  Suzanne bit down on her bottom lip painfully hard. There were no answers for her dilemma, none at all.

  Fifteen

  When it had grown dark and spooky in the barn and the men still weren’t back, Mack had crept into the bunkhouse through the laundry room door, hurriedly undressed down to his underwear and tossed all of his clothes, jacket included, into a washer. Skirting the kitchen to avoid Suzanne, he had tiptoed up the stairs, taken a shower and put on clean jeans and shirt.

  He’d stayed in his room until the men started coming upstairs, then decided to stay where he was a little longer, until they went down for supper.

  He was totally mortified over his first attempt to get on a horse, but even abject humiliation couldn’t daunt his determination to learn to ride. What he needed to do, he knew, was to talk one of the men into giving him some instructions, preferably Rand or J.D. Mack couldn’t decide which man he admired most. They were both so cool.

  Lying on his bed he thought it through from all angles. J.D. was on this floor, Rand was harder to get to. He would talk to J.D.

  He could hear showers running and men moving around getting cleaned up for the evening meal. Leaving his room, he heard some of them talking.

  “That latch didn’t open by itself,” one of them said.

  “Nope, sure didn’t,” another voice agreed.

  “And since no one with a lick of sense would turn Pinky out, how’d the latch get opened?”

  The conversation didn’t interest Mack in the least. He didn’t know who Pinky was, or what latch the men were discussing, nor did he care to know. He was focused on one thing, talking to J.D. about a lesson in horsemanship. Going to the door of J.D.’s room, he knocked.

  “It’s open,” J.D. called.

  Mack turned the knob, pushed the door open and grinned nervously. “Uh, hi, J.D.”

  J.D. was buttoning his clean shirt. “Hello, Mack.”

  “Uh, could I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead.” J.D. began tucking the tail of his shirt into his jeans.

  “I—I want to learn to ride a horse. Everyone’s always so busy around here, but…” His voice trailed off.

  “It’s a working ranch, Mack. A cowhand’s work is never done.”

  Mack nodded and gulped. “I know, but…” Again he stopped.

  One corner of J.D.’s mouth turned up in a knowing smile. “You want some pointers, right? Well, how about tomorrow morning before you head off for school? Would that be soon enough?”

  “Tomorrow? Really? Gosh, J.D., that would be great!” Mack started backing out of the room. “Thanks, J.D., thanks a lot.”

  J.D.’s grin broadened. Mack could be a pain in the neck with his constant questions, but teenage curiosity didn’t make him a bad kid in J.D.’s eyes. He did wonder at times what had brought the Paxtons to the ranch, but he would never ask. He didn’t stick his nose into other people’s business because he didn’t want them prying into his.

  Whatever, he’d have Mack riding in no time, probably in one lesson.

  Mack excitedly leapt down the stairs, two at a time, and ran into the kitchen. “Suzanne, guess what? J.D. is gonna give me a riding lesson tomorrow morning.”

  Suzanne felt as though her heart had just slipped down to her knees. Her smile was as genuine as she could make it, but if Mack hadn’t been so rambunctiously thrilled he would have seen the sadness in his sister’s eyes.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said, and turned back to the stove. “Dinner will be on the table in five minutes.”

  “Great! I’m starving.”

  Rand looked at the pile of mail on his desk with outright disgust. Opening mail was not how he wanted to spend the next few hours.

  But it had to be done. Accepting his fate, he sat down and reached for the topmost envelope. It was a power bill, and he set it aside. The next several items were advertisements, which he tossed into the wastebasket. He made a stack of the trade journals, and continued slitting envelopes until he came to one from the company that sold dynamite.

  In it were two sheets of paper, copies of the delivery receipts for those two cases of dynamite. Frowning, he studied the signatures, both of which were supposed to be hi
s. They were so much alike it took a few minutes to decide which one was genuine and which was the forgery. The creep he was dealing with was a lot more clever than he’d given him credit for, he thought with a burning knot of anger developing in his gut. Wasn’t that great news.

  Jerking a drawer open, he dropped in the copies. He would show them to Reed Austin, the next time he saw him.

  He couldn’t get rid of the anger as he worked his way through the pile. Bills went in one stack, trash went into the wastebasket, and all the while he was simmering inside.

  Then he stopped cold. In his hand was the letter Suzanne had told him she’d written to him before coming to Montana to find her brother.

  He took an uneasy breath. The storm had delayed his receiving this, and a lot had happened since Suzanne had written it. He had terribly mixed emotions about reading it. Something told him to tear it up and not read it, but his curiosity was more powerful than that nagging little voice in his head, and he slit the envelope quickly, before he could change his mind. Shaking out the letter, he unfolded it and began reading.

  Mr. Harding,

  First of all, I did not answer your ad, my teenage brother did. Secondly, I don’t know whose photo…

  Rand continued reading to the very end. Humiliation seared him as he reread, “I am not now nor ever could be interested in an advertisement such as yours… As for your letter, I can only say that I have never read such drivel in my life. If you’re lonesome, it’s your own doing. I could not care less.”

  Laying the letter down, he leaned back in his chair, feeling as weak as a newborn babe. Drivel. If you’re lonesome, it’s your own doing. I could not care less. Please do not contact me again…if you do I will turn this whole ridiculous matter over to the police. The cruel words went around and around in his head. My God, he thought in abject misery, how could he have put himself into such an embarrassing position? How could he even face Suzanne again after reading her letter? Her opinion of a man advertising for a wife couldn’t be any lower.

  Hearing footsteps in the hall, he grabbed the letter and its envelope and shoved them into a drawer. He was flipping through one of the trade journals when Suzanne walked in.

  “Would you like some help with the mail?” she asked. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to open it, and I didn’t have time today, anyway. But I’d be glad to help you with it now.”

  “Not necessary.” He didn’t raise his eyes and look at her. “I’m almost through. Oh, some bills came in. You can write checks for them tomorrow. Just leave them on my desk and I’ll sign them when I can.”

  “All right.” She had never heard that distant tone in Rand’s voice before, and it was very strange that he wasn’t looking at her. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.

  “Nope, not a thing.” Nothing other than having made a horse’s ass out of yourself, and then having fallen in love when you swore on your life you never would again.

  Suzanne kept standing there, mystified and puzzled. Only a few hours ago Rand had tenderly pressed a kiss to her hair, and now he wouldn’t even look at her. Her gaze fell on the mail, on the neat stacks he’d made of what he had already opened.

  It hit her then—her letter! It had finally come, he had read it and was hurt by it!

  But that was so silly. They hadn’t even met when she’d written that letter. She hadn’t known him at all, and had written of her disgust to a stranger she was positive she would never meet.

  In fact, she could hardly remember what she had written. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as Rand seemed to be taking it.

  “Rand,” she began, uncertain of how to get past this. “Why won’t you look at me?”

  He swiveled his chair around and looked her directly in the eye. “You think I got a problem with looking at you? No way, sweetheart.” No woman was going to break his heart again, especially not one who had threatened to call the police if he contacted her again. He didn’t need Suzanne; he didn’t need anyone. That ad had caused enough trouble; it wasn’t going to cause any more.

  Suzanne’s mouth was dry as desert dust. His sarcasm was undeserved. He had started this nightmare, if he cared to remember, not her. How dare he act as though she were at fault here?

  She lifted her chin. “I’ll take care of the bills in the morning. Good night.” She walked out.

  Rand stared at the empty doorway for a while, then turned back to the desk. He felt like a complete fool, and when he found that he could no longer concentrate on the mail, he put his head in his hands and groaned. What in God’s name had possessed him to put that ad in that damned magazine?

  He wouldn’t tell Suzanne to pack up her brother and leave, but she would get the message sooner or later. They were through. He couldn’t face her day after day knowing how she really felt about him.

  Then he remembered their lovemaking and groaned again. Miserable, frustrated and angry, he shoved his chair away from the desk, got up and strode stiffly to his bedroom.

  He didn’t even look at Suzanne’s door as he passed it. There were too many unnerving memories connected to that room, and he didn’t want to think about them.

  But think about them, he did, far into the night. Cursing did no good, punching his pillow, either. He was bleary-eyed exhausted and still couldn’t sleep.

  In her room, Suzanne wept quietly into her pillow. She hated herself for crying over Rand’s withdrawal. She hadn’t been going to marry him, had she? No. Then why was she crying now because he so obviously no longer wanted to marry her?

  She had to get away from here. She would tell Mack in the morning. She was no longer worried that Rand would let him stay on the ranch if she didn’t. He would be only too happy to be rid of both of the Paxtons.

  Well, maybe she would be happy to be rid of him, too.

  Her sobs increased. She wouldn’t be happy about it at all. Why was she lying to herself?

  Her emotions became more ragged the longer she lay there and wept. One minute she hated Rand, the next she loved him. One minute she couldn’t wait to get away from this hideous place, the next she thought of its beauty, and how accustomed she had become to cooking huge meals and working in the office.

  Around midnight she thought of facing Rand in the morning and got sick to her stomach. Why should she put herself through that? She and Mack could leave tonight. She knew which room was his, and she could go upstairs right now and wake him up. He wouldn’t like it, he would probably revert back to his old, surly self, but when she explained…

  She was suddenly bitter and furious. This whole awful thing was Mack’s fault, and why should she worry about how he might take being dragged out of a deep sleep? She was going home! To hell with Rand Harding.

  Wearing a robe over her pajamas and slippers on her feet, she dashed from her room, down the hall and up the stairs. Counting doors, she stopped at Mack’s, drew a big breath and walked into his room. Without a by-your-leave, she snapped on the ceiling light. Mack never budged.

  Hurrying over to the bed, she shook Mack by the shoulder. “Mack?” she whispered. “Mack, wake up.”

  “Wha-what’s going on?” Mack came to partial alertness.

  “Keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake the men. We’re leaving. Get up and pack your things.”

  Blinking at the light, Mack sat up. “What d’ya mean, we’re leaving?”

  “We’re going home.”

  “Back to Baltimore?”

  “That’s home, isn’t it? Now, hurry.” She started for the door.

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Mack shouted.

  Suzanne rushed back to the bed. “For Pete’s sake, keep your voice down! Do you think I want to wake the whole bunkhouse?” She sat next to her brother. “Mack, we have to leave. Rand doesn’t want us here.”

  “Who said?”

  “He did.”

  Mack looked stunned. “He came right out and said it?”

  “Not in so many words, but his meaning was very clear.”

  Mack lay down again
. “I ain’t going.”

  Suzanne’s lips thinned. “Do you think I’m lying? When have I ever lied to you?”

  “I thought you and Rand were getting along,” Mack said with a sulky expression.

  “Well, we weren’t, and he made it very obvious to me tonight that we’ve overstayed our welcome. Will you please get up and get packed?”

  “I got clothes in the washer.”

  “Wet clothes? Mack, dammit…” Suzanne calmed herself. “All right, I’ll put them in the dryer. You get busy packing the rest of your things. I’ll be in my room. Come down there, very quietly, please, when you’re ready.” Rising, she started for the door again.

  “J.D. was gonna give me a riding lesson in the morning.”

  Suzanne turned around. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. Mack, I’m going to promise you something. After I find a job and get back on my feet financially, I’ll see that you get your riding lessons. There’s a very good stable on Westwood Road, and I’ve heard they have some lovely riding trails.”

  Mack didn’t answer. Sighing, Suzanne said, “Please get dressed and packed right away. I’d like to leave as soon as possible.” Quietly slipping out of his room, she made her way back down the stairs and to the laundry room. It took only a few moments to transfer the wet clothing from washer to dryer, which she turned on, winced at the sound, prayed no one would hear it and then sped to her own room.

  Her hands were shaking when she took her two pieces of luggage from the small closet and brought them to the bed. In fact, the trembling was rampant throughout her entire body, not just in her hands.

  She gritted her teeth and told herself that she was doing the right thing, the only thing she could do. The thought of even seeing Rand again, let alone acting as though everything was all right between them for everyone else’s benefit, was unbearable. He would be greatly relieved in the morning when he discovered they were gone, and she would be relieved to be gone. Mack was the only one who would have regrets, and he would get over them. Eventually.