“How many are you working with?”
“Eleven. I had twelve, but a piebald gelding can’t seem to get the idea, so I’m sending him back to his owner. It’s a shame, because he’s a very nice horse.”
“Maybe I could give him a try. I did spend nine years on a ranch.”
“If you want.”
She didn’t know what he’d done when he was on that ranch. It was one thing to make sure your horse hadn’t picked up any stones or that the packsaddle wasn’t rubbing any sores. It was another to know how to convince a stubborn horse to cut a cow from a herd. The horse had to be intelligent, cooperative, and want to do his job. Emily wasn’t sure the piebald was any of those.
“If you want her to go to Boston,” Bertie said, “you’re going to have to take those horses with you.” She harrumphed. “She don’t care about anything else.”
“That’s my work,” Emily said.
“You ought to get married and let your husband worry about all that. You need to be having babies. Your papa ought to see one grandson before he’s put in his grave.”
The part about getting married and having babies simply annoyed Emily, but the part about her father dying without seeing any grandchildren hurt. She glanced at Bret to see his reaction, but his face was expressionless. Emily was relieved when Bertie sat a bowl of peaches and a plate of potatoes and gravy on the table. Those were followed quickly by a platter of ham and eggs.
“Take what you want now,” Bertie said. “I’ve got to feed the boys before they come in here wondering if I’ve dropped dead in front of the stove.”
Neither Bertie nor Emily missed Bret’s look of surprise.
“The men prefer to eat by themselves,” Bertie said. “Mr. Abercrombie makes them nervous, and Emily makes them choke on their food.”
“If you don’t stop telling him stories, he’s going to think we’re the worst people in Texas,” Emily complained to Bertie.
“I can’t help it if you don’t like the truth.”
“I’m not afraid of the truth. It just sounds different when you tell it.”
“Imagine that,” Bertie said and turned back to her stove.
Emily decided that eating her breakfast in silence might be the safest way to get through the next few minutes. Bret had come knowing she was dead set against her father’s wishes. Now he probably thought she was spoiled and self-centered. She was used to getting her way, but not because she was spoiled. She’d been given the responsibility to make decisions. It wasn’t her fault if people didn’t like all of them.
She watched Bret out of the corner of her eye. He’d looked mighty handsome in his suit, but there was something different about him in a tan shirt, denim jeans, and boots. He looked more virile, more exciting, more . . . masculine. His suit coat had emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, but his shirt allowed her to see the ridges of bone, the swell of muscle, the movement of sinew as he ate his breakfast. She’d been around men all her life, but she felt as if she’d never really seen one before now.
She hadn’t realized she’d practically ignored her breakfast until Bret wiped his mouth and put his napkin next to his plate.
“That was an excellent breakfast,” he said to Bertie. “A worthy companion to last night’s dinner.”
“Don’t you go trying to get around me with your pretty smiles,” Bertie said, trying unsuccessfully to hide her pleasure at his words. “This ain’t nothing compared to what you have all the time in a fancy place like Boston.”
“I spent more than half my life in Texas. You make me feel like I’ve come home.”
Emily didn’t know Bret well yet, but she was developing a feel for the times when something touched a part of him he couldn’t hide. A couple of times she’d sensed that things were slipping past his guard, getting around his defenses, reminding him of something he had tried to forget—or had refused to remember.
“Eleven kids around the table couldn’t be anything like this morning,” Emily said.
“It’s the food, the air, the warmth of the breeze.” He chuckled. “It’s the hot biscuits with jam and butter. You can’t know how many memories that brings back. Isabelle turned into a good cook, and she made fabulous biscuits.”
“Better than mine?” Bertie asked.
Emily held her breath. Anybody who dared criticize Bertie’s cooking took his life in his hands.
“I dreamed about that beef you served at dinner last night, but nobody can make a better biscuit than Isabelle.”
Bertie took a moment to digest that. “Everybody has to be especially good at something. You wait until you taste my stuffed fillet of veal or my pecan pie.”
“You can make a pecan pie?” Bret asked, his eyes growing excited.
Emily could have punched him. If he’d spent one year in Texas, he knew pecans grew wild and every woman knew how to make a pecan pie. And Bertie, the tyrant of the kitchen for as long as Emily could remember, was acting like a girl with her first crush.
“We’ll have fresh peaches, too, if you hang around for a few weeks. Mrs. Abercrombie had Mr. Sam plant a fruit orchard, build a grape arbor, and set out rows of berries. We have to water them in summer and protect them against the cold in winter, but the hands think it’s worth it when I start making pies.”
Emily’s father said he sometimes thought the hands worried more about his fruits and berries than they did about his cows.
“Maybe I’ll move here from Boston,” Bret said, giving Emily one of his innocent looks.
Refusing to rise to the bait, Emily took one last swallow of coffee. “It’s time to go to work. If you’re serious about seeing what you can do with that piebald, meet me out by the corrals in half an hour. I have to make sure Dad’s awake and okay.”
Emily was too irritated at herself for feeling jealous of the attention he was showing Bertie to wait around for his answer. She knew he was flirting with Bertie and that neither of them took it seriously, but that didn’t seem to make any difference. She told herself she didn’t want his attention, but she couldn’t make herself believe it.
Maybe she was infatuated. She certainly wasn’t acting like herself. Maybe it was normal to think about him all the time. His attention was going to be focused on her, so naturally hers would be focused on him. What she hadn’t expected was for him to pay attention to other people. There was the orphan in Fort Worth, Ida’s boys, her father, and now Bertie. It was like he was making a place for himself when she knew he had no intention of staying in Texas. The most obvious explanation would be that everything he did was part of his plan to convince her to change her mind about Boston, but she couldn’t see how flattering their cook would help.
Then there was the possibility he was doing this so she would marry him. She wished she could talk to Joseph. She didn’t know if she could trust everything he said, but he had to know his cousin better than she did. She liked Bret very much. In fact, the more she saw of him, the more she liked him. She didn’t think she could stand it if his charm was all a pretense.
Bret was impressed by the size and complexity of Sam’s ranch. In addition to a larger-than-usual ranch house and the expected bunkhouse and corrals, Sam had built a barn for equipment, another shared by cows, pigs, and chickens, and a small house which must have been where Ida and Charlie had lived. The orchard had been placed on the side of a small hill not far from the house, with the garden at the bottom. A shallow dam had been built to collect water for the garden as well as protect it from being washed out during a storm. A windmill provided plenty of cold, fresh water from a deep well.
Bret heard a door slam and turned toward the house, but it was only Bertie tossing out the dishwater. Apparently, Emily was still with her father. Bret wasn’t sure it was wise to spend the morning working with her, but he didn’t really have a choice. Changing her mind about leaving Texas wasn’t going to be an easy job. But that wasn’t what was bothering him.
His attraction to her was getting stronger by the hour, despite the
fact that she’d only grudgingly decided he wasn’t a green tenderfoot who would get into serious trouble if left to his own devices. Worse, she didn’t appear to be happy about losing her preconceived notions. Maybe that was what he liked about her. She was a strong woman, determined to hold on to what she thought was right regardless of what other people thought. That was so much like Isabelle, it made him laugh.
It would have been impossible not to be attracted to Emily. Even Ida’s boys talked about how pretty she was, and they hadn’t reached puberty. He’d passed that stage long ago and discovered what it meant. Sexual desire was something that had never been a problem before, but he had a feeling that was about to change. He had to keep their relationship on a business footing. He couldn’t forget his goal. Let Emily think he was interested in her that way, and she’d never believe anything he said.
And if he achieved that goal, he would then be faced with the problem of making sure Emily found a suitable husband. Except for Rupert, he didn’t know a single man who deserved a woman like Emily, but Rupert was already married. It wasn’t likely that Joseph or Uncle Silas would pay any attention to him on that subject. He had no reason to think Emily would, either. But if he accepted Sam’s offer to let him vote the stock, he had to deliver on his promise.
He sighed. That wasn’t his only problem. Returning to Texas had brought home two very unpalatable truths. He missed Texas and everything about his life on Jake’s ranch. And no matter what he did, he would never receive the acceptance from his blood family that his adopted family had given him. He didn’t understand why he was only now figuring that out.
“Didn’t expect to see you up this early.”
Bret turned to see Lonnie approaching him, making no attempt to hide his unfriendly scowl. He really didn’t expect Lonnie to like him. His presence threatened the man’s livelihood as well as his interest in Emily. Lonnie was dressed for work, but his jeans were clean, his shirt had been ironed, and his boots cleaned. Clearly he was out to make a good impression.
“I’m used to getting up early,” Bret said. “Clerks don’t have the advantage of being able to sleep late.”
“Not even when they’re related to the boss?” Lonnie was clearly skeptical.
“Especially not then.” He didn’t want to talk about himself to Lonnie. He knew the type—capable foreman with plans to move up in the world. Since his plan included marrying the boss’s daughter, he could pose a serious problem to Bret’s mission. He would have to keep an eye on the fellow. “Mr. Abercrombie has a very impressive complex here.”
“He’s a farseeing man. He’s fenced in some of his land so he can improve the quality of his herds.”
Jake had started doing that before Bret left for Boston. He’d spent a part of his profits each year buying quality bulls.
“Does Emily take a hand in the breeding?”
“Miss Abercrombie takes a hand in every part of the ranch, but her real love is her horses.”
“I’ve offered to see if I can help her.”
“What can you do?”
“Don’t know yet, but she said I could try my hand at a piebald that seems reluctant to learn his lessons. Is that him over there?” Six horses occupied one of the large corrals. A piebald, larger by several inches than the others, was grazing a little away from the others.
“Yep,” Lonnie said.
“Show me where you keep the saddles.”
Lonnie reluctantly took Bret into the nearest barn, where Bret chose a saddle from the half dozen there. He also picked out a rope.
“What’s the rope for?” Lonnie asked.
“Unless he comes when called, I have to rope him before I can saddle him.”
“You really going to ride him?” Jem asked as he came into the barn. In contrast to Lonnie, he wore badly scuffed boots, threadbare jeans, a plaid shirt that had been patched twice, and a hat with a ragged brim.
“I can’t do anything with him if I don’t,” Bret told him.
“He bucks first thing in the morning.”
“Most range-bred horses do.”
“You’d better let Jem get him for you,” Lonnie said. “I wouldn’t want you to fall off and break something.”
Bret was getting tired of everybody thinking he couldn’t get out of his own way. Any kid growing up on a ranch in Texas knew how to rope and ride a horse. Nobody had to know he’d been afraid of horses, had never ridden one until he was twelve. Neither did they have to know how hard he’d worked to make up for that deficit.
“I’ll take my chances.” He put the rope over his shoulder and picked up the saddle.
“I could carry that for you,” Jem offered.
“I already got it,” Bret said. “You can bring the bridle and saddle cloth.”
Lonnie and Jem followed Bret as he headed toward the corral. Two cowhands were there ahead of them. A couple more emerged from the bunkhouse. Bret balanced the saddle on one of the corral poles while Jem draped the saddle cloth beside it.
“You sure you don’t want me to help you?” Jem asked. “He can be right ornery some mornings.”
“So can I,” Bret said but almost immediately cautioned himself to relax before the horses caught his mood. “Be ready with the bridle.” Bret liked Jem. The boy didn’t appear to resent him the way Lonnie did. “Do you help Emily when she trains her horses?”
“She don’t let nobody help her,” Jem said. “Not even Lonnie.” Their boots stirred up dust as they walked across the corral.
“I expect he’s too busy with the rest of the ranch work to have that kind of time.”
“He’d make time,” Jem said.
The horses had stopped grazing, all of them watching Bret and Jem. Bret glanced back to see that three more men had climbed the corral fence. “I see everybody’s gathered around.”
Jem laughed. “They’re expecting a show.”
“You mean they’re expecting the piebald to grind me into the ground.”
Jem laughed. “Something like that.”
“Let’s see if we can entertain them.”
Chapter Eight
“What’s Bret doing in the corral with Jem?” Emily asked Lonnie.
“He says he’s going to ride the piebald.”
“Did you tell him he bucks?”
“Yeah,” said one of the cowhands perched on the rough, hand-hewn timbers of the fence. “I’ve got two bits he misses his first throw.”
“And his second,” another cowhand said.
The men had to shade their eyes against the sun, which was still low in the east. Dew glistened on the few blades of grass the horses hadn’t eaten or trampled underfoot.
“I’ve got two bits that says the piebald chases him out of the corral,” a third guy said. All the men laughed.
“I’ve got two bits that says he makes his first throw and stays on.” The words were out of Emily’s mouth before she had time to realize what she was saying.
“Who’re you kidding?” one of the hands asked.
“He grew up on a ranch,” Emily said, trying to figure out why she was going out on a limb for Bret. “He’s got to know a good bit about horses.”
“Bertie grew up on a ranch, too,” the cowhand said, “and she’s scared of horses.”
“She’s not scared of you,” Emily replied.
“Or anything else on two feet,” a cowhand added dryly.
Emily paid no attention to the jokes about Bertie. The men were a little afraid of her—they scattered like chickens before an attacking hawk when she got angry—but they adored her. Emily focused her attention on Bret as he approached the piebald. The horse had stopped grazing and started shaking his head from side to side. Bret had formed a loop and was slowly twirling the rope.
“Maybe he’s a show cowboy,” a cowhand said. “He twirls that rope real good.”
“He’d better be more than show if he expects to lasso that piebald. He’s not going to stick his head in the noose.”
The piebald moved away, b
ut not far. When Bret continued to walk toward him at a steady pace, the piebald ducked his head, turned, and trotted away.
“He’s spooked him,” a cowhand said. “He’ll never catch him now.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Bret raised the rope over his head and let it sail through the air. It settled easily over the piebald’s head.
“Well, I’ll be a polecat’s daddy,” one exclaimed.
“It had to be luck. How many times have any of us made a perfect throw when the horse was running away?” The cowhand turned to Emily. “You think he can handle the piebald?”
Emily tried to pretend she wasn’t nearly as impressed as the cowhands, but she couldn’t repress a smile. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Even though it was obvious that Bret knew how to handle a rope, Emily was inclined to think that toss had been a bit lucky. It had been too perfect. The piebald backed away as Bret approached. He was usually a difficult horse to handle until he’d worked the kinks out.
“Did you tell Bret the piebald is likely to strike out with his forefoot?” Emily asked Lonnie.
“He didn’t give me a chance to tell him anything,” Lonnie replied, his tone indicating he was in a bad mood. “Didn’t act like he thought there was anything he needed to hear.”
Emily was afraid Lonnie hadn’t tried too hard to prepare Bret for dealing with the piebald. She hoped Jem had.
Bret approached the piebald slowly. He was too far away for Emily to hear what he was saying, but he talked constantly.
“Maybe he’s hoping to hypnotize him.”
“Or talk him to death.”
Emily watched as Bret approached the horse, his hand outstretched.
“He’s about to lose those fingers.”
“Hell, he’s gonna lose his whole hand.”
But the piebald allowed Bret to rub the black streak resembling a lightning bolt that ran the length of his forehead.
“I’ll be damned. He did hypnotize him.”
The piebald backed up a few steps when Bret showed him the bridle. But instead of trying to slip it over his head immediately, Bret rubbed it against his neck, his shoulders, his jaw, finally across his nose so he could smell it.
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