Cowboy For Hire

by Duncan, Alice

  “It is typical of a female,” said Vernon in his icily controlled voice, “to feel rather than to think. Ii suppose it’s because women are unable to think critically.”

  Amy tried not to resent that, because she knew she’d never given him any reason to think of her as a reflective person. She’d always agreed with him, no matter what trash he spouted. He surely never believed that she’d mount a rebellion or oppose his will. Until this minute. It must be a terrible shock to him to learn she had a mind of her own and a will of her own after all the time he’d spent thinking of her as someone he could mold to his wishes.

  Overall, Amy believed she’d like him better if he got mad and hollered like lesser men did, instead of continuing his cold, rigid pose, which was quite off-putting. She sighed heavily.

  Vernon’s lips set into a tight line. “That being the case, I believe that you—all women—ought to be prudent and take advice from the men who have your interests at heart. You’re evidently unable to determine those things for yourself.”

  She eyed him slantways. Did he have her interests at heart? Amy doubted it. “Um ... I don’t think it’s possible for you to do that, Vernon, since you don’t really know me. You certainly don’t know me well enough to be able to assess my best interests.”

  “Don’t know you?” Vernon’s light blue eyes fairly started from his head. “I’ve known you since you were a child! And I’ve never held your background against you, either, no matter how sordid it is. I’ve never once mentioned your squalid beginnings. You have to admit that, Amy, because it’s truth.”

  She blinked, astonished. “Good heavens, Vernon, I wish you had mentioned this before. I had no idea you thought I was so far beneath you.”

  He frowned. “Well, honestly, being impoverished and abandoned by one’s parents is not something one chats about every day, as if it were nothing.”

  “My parents couldn’t very well help abandoning me. They died, if you’ll recall.” Amy heard the acidity in her voice and hoped Vernon wouldn’t.

  He didn’t. She ought to have expected as much. He waved her objection aside with his hand. “I discussed the matter with my parents a long time ago, and they agreed with me that as long as it’s not an episode people are likely to talk about, it won’t become a problem or interfere with our position in society.”

  Our position in society. Good grief. Anyhow, it was obviously a problem already. Amy sensed she could never make Vernon understand that. She merely said calmly, “I’m very sorry, Vernon. I’m sure you don’t understand, and there’s no way I can make you understand. Just know, please, that this hurts me. Know also that you will eventually be very glad that you didn’t marry me, because I’m not the woman you need as a wife.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”

  Vernon did something Amy had never seen him do before. He put a hand to his forehead. Good heavens, her news must have come as a dreadful blow if he was becoming animated. She began to wring her hands in distress. “I’m so very sorry, Vernon.”

  “I see.” He stood abruptly, causing his chair to skid on the floor—another indication of his inner turmoil. His outer self looked perfectly controlled. “I shall have to think about this, Amy, and consult with my parents. I can’t but believe that you must have lost your mind.”

  “If that will make you feel better,” Amy murmured, and couldn’t continue. She felt rotten. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose it’s best to learn now that you’re given to instability an flights of fancy. Perhaps you’re right that you aren’t the woman I need for a wife.”

  “I’m glad you’re beginning to understand that.”

  She watched him stalk away from her as if he were a duke and she a lowly vassal who had displeased him, and she felt heavy, alone, and unhappy. She’d hurt his feelings, whether he knew it or not, and she didn’t like herself for it. She’d have liked herself even less if she’d married him while she was in love with another man.

  “I guess this lets out the Tournament of Roses,” she muttered to herself as she went inside to resume her duties at the Orange Rest. Soon the inmates would be arising from their afternoon naps, and she’d be needed to distribute glasses of orange juice among them.

  She had a momentary mental image of herself as a white-haired woman with wrinkles and no family, clinging to her job at the Orange Rest Health Spa because there was nothing else in her life to cling to. A sharp pang assailed her.

  “Stop it!” she commanded herself.

  That scenario wasn’t in the cards for Amy Wilkes. No, sirree. She and Karen had talked about it for hours and hours and hours, and, while Amy would never be as bold and daring as Karen, she wasn’t about to let herself dwindle into an old maid, either. Not without putting up a darned good fight, she wasn’t.

  She hoped she was in suitable training. The good Lord knew she’d been practicing.

  * * *

  “Ha! Martin’s the old maid!” Amy went off into a peal of laughter. Martin, Karen and Aunt Julia joined in. Julia had never before played cards and still considered them a relatively sinful pursuit, but she was lowering herself this once in order to keep from being bored during the long train journey from Pasadena to Chicago. Amy appreciated her aunt’s amiability and condescension. Aunt Julia had always been a brick.

  “Phooey,” said Martin, feigning discouragement. “It’s because the only women I meet are actresses, and any man would be a fool to marry one of them.”

  “I don’t think they’re all so bad,” Amy murmured. “Mr. Huxtable was a fiend, of course, but I’m sure the actresses who work in pictures can’t all be that bad.”

  “Hmmm,” said Karen, as if she weren’t sure of it at all.

  Julia, to whom the newfangled moving pictures were a miracle, gazed wide-eyed at her niece and Karen, and at Martin Tafft, who was the most elegant man she’d ever met. She’d told Amy so several times.

  “I wish Charlie could have come with us,” Martin went on as he shuffled the cards. “Then he could be stuck as the old maid a couple of times. You three are too slick for me.”

  Karen slipped Amy a worried glance, but Amy only smiled. “I’m glad he’s not going to miss the premiere,” Karen said, striving to sound casual. “He performed his role very well.”

  “Yes, he did,” Martin said, dealing out the Old Maid cards. “And he said he’d be there. We even went out together and bought him some fancy new clothes to wear.”

  Karen murmured something under her breath. Amy was surprised, too. “My goodness.”

  “He’ll look like a Greek god,” Karen declared dramatically. Occasionally Amy wondered why Karen hadn’t been asked to perform in the pictures instead of herself.

  Martin chuckled. “I don’t know about that. He’s pretty nervous about it. He looks elegant in his new duds, but I think he’s more comfortable in denim britches and plain shirts.”

  “Are you finished with the filming of The Lone Cowboy?” Karen asked.

  “Yes, we are, and he did a wonderful job. I wish I could get him to do more pictures for Peerless. He has a tremendous presence on the screen.” Martin sighed. “But he’d got other plans.” He brightened a little. “You never know, though. The money’s good, and he might soften eventually.”

  Amy’s heart crunched up a little, but she didn’t let it show.

  “I’ll be so glad to meet him,” declared Julia, eyeing her cards and putting a pair down on the table. “I’ve heard so much about him.”

  “You have?”

  Both Karen and Martin stared at Amy, who blushed. “I’ve told my aunt about everyone on the set,” she said defiantly. “It was an exciting adventure for all of us.”

  “I’ll say it was.” Karen gave Amy a sly grin, so Amy kicked her—not hard—under the table.

  Julia nodded energetically and drew a card. “It sounds like it. Especially that floor.” Julia glanced, bright-eyed, at Karen and Amy. “Imagine my two girls cooking for an entire cast!”

&
nbsp; “I wouldn’t exactly call it cooking,” Amy temporized, although she was happy that Julia had begun thinking of Karen as part of the family.

  “It was, too,” Karen said firmly. “I’ve never made so much cornbread in my entire life. And you made a whole rabbit stew. That’s cooking, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of, I guess.”

  “Charlie shot the rabbits,” Karen continued, slapping a pair down and shooting a triumphant grin around the table. “Bang! Right there in the wilds of the desert. And Amy cooked a very tasty stew with them.”

  Amy decided silence was called for here, so she didn’t say a word.

  “I’m sorry Benjamin can’t join us in Chicago,” Martin said, as if talking about Charlie with Amy had reminded him of the close relationship between Karen and Benjamin.

  “He’d doing another picture, so he couldn’t come along.”

  Karen sighed dreamily, and Amy’s heart snagged before she steeled herself, as she’d been doing for approximately two months now. She wasn’t going to invite defeat this time. If she was to be beaten at this game, she would go down fighting. Karen had taught her that much, at least, and Amy wasn’t going to let her coach down.

  * * *

  “If Charlie doesn’t fall all over himself and propose to you tonight, there’s no hope for him.” Karen gazed at Amy with what looked to Amy remarkably like the pride of invention.

  Amy couldn’t fault Karen for any feeling she might possess of having created something out of nothing. Not that Amy was ugly to begin with, but she certainly did look dazzling tonight—more dazzling than she’d ever looked before, even when they’d stayed at the Royal El Montean.

  Amy told herself not to think about the Royal El Montean. But she appreciated Karen’s talent and energy very much as she stood in her evening gown, fashioned and sewn for her this time instead of Wilma Patecky, by Karen’s own hands. The entire ensemble couldn’t have been more perfect.

  What’s more, Karen had talked Martin into footing the cost of everything by persuading him that the glory of Amy would send people flocking to see the picture. Martin had taken the bait, although, according to Karen, he’d seen beyond Karen’s blithe talk to the two women’s true motive.

  “He knows you’re pining away for Charlie,” Karen said as she gazed at her handiwork with an eye to improvement.

  “I’m not pining away! He probably agreed to pay because we’re giving him the jewelry and the gown after Chicago.” Amy, embarrassed and beginning to heat up, turned so that Karen wouldn’t be able to see her consternation.

  Blast! She hated when Karen’s glib tongue told the truth in such a bald-faced manner. Amy was accustomed to people sugarcoating ugly truths. Such fiddle-faddling ways were not Karen’s, though, and Amy loved her for it, even if she also deplored it sometimes. Like now, for instance.

  “Pshaw!” said Karen, with no remorse whatsoever. Not that Amy had expected any. “And Martin says Charlie’s pining away for you, too—although, of course, men handle pining differently from women.”

  Amy would just bet they did, although she’d die before she asked. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. If Charlie’s pining involved other women, she’d probably fall down screaming and tear her hair out. How embarrassing.

  Amy’s internal emotions and reluctance didn’t matter to Karen, who never needed to hear questions before she answered them. “I guess he’s been running wild all over Southern California.”

  “Oh, my.” This was serious news, indeed. Had the poor man taken to drink from the agony of losing her?

  Try not to be a total ass, Amy Wilkes, her inner guide told her with remarkable pungency. “What’s he been doing?” she asked, steeling herself for the worst.

  Karen shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  My, wasn’t that helpful? Amy tried not to resent her friend.

  She was right to withhold criticism, apparently, because Karen immediately followed her disclaimer with, “He’s been looking at land, I understand. And reading everything he can get his hands on about other stuff.”

  “What other stuff?”

  Karen shrugged. “I understand he’s investing in Peerless.”

  “Oh.” Did that mean he intended to stay in the pictures? For some reason, Amy was disappointed.

  She’d always pictured Charlie on a horse on a ranch somewhere, looking lean and sleek and absolutely masculine, in front of a flock of cows. Or was it a herd? Whatever. Something about acting in pictures didn’t seem quite manly to her, although she allowed herself to be prejudiced by her experience.

  “Of course, he’s made a ton of money with Peerless, so I imagine he knows what he’s doing by investing. As annoying as Martin can be sometimes when he gets to spouting the marvels of movies with all his boyish enthusiasm, I think he’s right about the flickers. They’re going to make a whole lot of people a whole lot of money.”

  “I suspect you’re both right.”

  Karen made a dive at Amy and executed one last adjustment to the waist of Amy’s gown. She stood back to view her creation as Amy gazed at herself in the mirror. She was quite a sight, if she did say so herself.

  Lace the blue of her eyes and mounted on cream silk adorned her body as if it had been sewn to the skin. The gown featured a daringly low neckline, short cap sleeves formed by a scallop of lace, and a blue cummerbund. The flared skirt dipped into a long train at the back. With the gown, Amy wore long cream-colored kid gloves, and a necklace and drop earrings of faux sapphires. If Charlie still had any feelings for her at all, she hoped the sight of her in this incredible finery would push him over the edge.

  If, of course, his pride didn’t stand in the way.

  Fear and pride. To Amy’s way of thinking, those were the two monsters that stood in the way of a union between them. Her fear and his pride. She’d wounded his pride. She was ashamed of herself for it, because it was her fear that had made her do it. Well, she might not be done with fear, but she was sure aiming to battle it tooth and nail in order to secure Charlie Fox.

  Which was a darned good thing, since she was at present scared to flinders.

  In the meantime, Karen’s gaze of appreciation had faded. She now sported a small frown and was tapping her cheek with her forefinger.

  Amy said, “What? What’s wrong?”

  Karen cocked her head to one side. “Nothing’s wrong, but something’s missing. Let me think for a minute until I figure out what it is.”

  Amy, who had become accustomed to episodes of this nature during the filming of One and Only stood still and waited. At last Karen cried, “I have it! Your hair.”

  Amy’s right hand shot to her hair, upon which she’d spent an inordinate amount of time earlier in the evening. “What about my hair?”

  “You need feathers.”

  “Feathers?” Good heavens.

  “And I think I have some right here.”

  To Amy’s amazement, Karen pitched into her luggage and after digging around for a moment, produced one of her ever-present boxes, this one evidently having started out in life filled with Cuban cigars. “What’s in there?”

  “Feathers.” Karen gave a negligent shrug. “And some other stuff. You never know what you’re going to need.”

  Up until she’d met Karen, Amy had never considered emergencies of an apparel-related nature. Emergencies to her had always been accompanied by some kind of danger or worry. How naïve she’d been. She blinked as Karen tossed several strands of fake jewels—neatly rolled and tied—onto the bed, followed by several yards of rolled-up ribbons and a couple of silk flower hair ornaments, and then lifted a variety of feathers out of the box. “Here they are.”

  They were indeed. Amy, guessing that it was safe to move by this time, walked to the bed to see what was what. Karen whirled around and held out two blue feathers and one black one. “The very thing!” she cried.

  Amy trusted Karen implicitly when it came to clothes, so she said, “I’m happy to hear it.”

  “You j
ust wait.”

  Karen tapped her shoulder, and Amy obediently turned around. She felt Karen poke the feathers into her hairdo—a new and creative arrangement she’d practiced for weeks at home—and prayed that nothing would come loose. It didn’t.

  “All right, go look at yourself,” Karen said. The note of complacency in her voice encouraged Amy to do as she’d said.

  “My gracious, you’re right. They’re perfect.”

  “Aren’t they, though?”

  Amy turned around. “Thank you, Karen. Thank you for everything.” Since she was about to sniffle, she grabbed a hankie out of the cleverly hidden pocket in her skirt and blew her nose.

  “Nonsense,” asserted Karen. “You’re my best friend.” She, too, began to sniffle.

  It was therefore a couple of watery lasses who went to Uncle Frank and Aunt Julia’s room a few minutes later to bear them off for a spectacular evening of frivolity and entertainment. Martin was going to meet them all in the lobby of the hotel and take them to a magnificent restaurant for a bit to eat before the premiere of One and Only. He had warned them that photographers and newspapermen would be swarming around them all evening in order to capture pictures and quotes from the stars.

  “Don’t forget,” he told them with patent glee, “this is the very first featured motion picture ever made. This is a huge occasion for the whole of the motion picture industry. For the whole world, even! The newspapers are going to eat it up.”

  Amy believed him, although she herself considered the amount of publicity being expended for something as trivial as a moving picture rather sad. She’d prefer it if the press kept its photographers and writers for important things. Like floods and famine and war and so forth. Sensing that tragedy shouldn’t be the only thing to which the press paid attention, she added the discovery of ancient Egyptian tombs, breakthroughs in medical research, and great scientific revelations to her list of publicity-worthy ventures.