The Lover

by Genell Dellin

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She should’ve thought about that grin before she laid down her money. He’d taken her lightly from the very first, right there in the jail.

  “About as much as I trust a rattlesnake.”

  That only made his grin widen.

  “Always like to know where I stand,” he said.

  He turned and started down the street, walking much faster than he had before.

  Susanna stayed right beside him. They passed the barbershop and came to the saloon, where he stopped.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  She stepped between him and the half doors, her heart beating like a hammer in her chest.

  “You heard me back there in the jail,” she said. “You have to learn to do without liquor and you have to start now.”

  “I don’t intend to drink a drop.”

  There was that little twitch of his lips again.

  Her anger bubbled over. She set her fists on her hips.

  “Why in the world do men have to be such dense creatures?” she cried. “Look at you. Anyone can see you have a problem with drink. You’re a fine figure of a man, Mr. Sixkiller. Don’t let your natural bent for whiskey ruin you.”

  His grin vanished.

  “In other words, you’re calling me a drunken Indian. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Copeland?”

  Colder fear grabbed her by the heart. Would he take so much offense that he’d quit her for sure?

  She gathered all her strength.

  “Some of your people—”

  “I was the only sober man in that jail cell,” he interrupted. “And obviously the only Indian. Yes, ma’am. I’m Cherokee and proud of it.”

  He took off his hat and bent his head, turning so that she could see the spot where he held back his long hair, which was tied with a leather thong. A huge pump knot swelled behind his ear.

  Susanna gasped before she got hold of herself. Showing him sympathy wouldn’t help either of them. It would defeat her purpose.

  “That should’ve taught you a lesson, right there,” she said. “When liquor’s in control of you, you can’t control anything around you.”

  He straightened up and replaced his hat, all the while giving her a hurt look.

  “They hit me with a two-by-four,” he said. “There were two of them. They could’ve killed me.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Drunks get into lots of fights and bad situations. You’d better stay sober.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he wanted to grin. “I was stone-cold sober when I got into this bad situation.”

  A cold hand clutched her stomach. He wasn’t going to back out now. She would not let him.

  “At the end of the trail you’ll thank me,” she said. “You’ll be amazed how much better you’ll feel after weeks of good, hard work in the open air and a true victory over demon rum.”

  He looked at her for a long minute with that piercing gleam of humor coming back into his dark brown eyes.

  “It’ll be very good for you to go up the trail at the head of my outfit,” she said. “The responsibility will be good for you, too.”

  Of course, she’d have to be the real head of the outfit. There was no telling when he’d try to find a saloon again. Or when he’d take some happening lightly and laugh about it when it should be taken seriously, instead.

  “You’re a hard girl, Susanna,” he said. “Any other woman would have sympathy and a natural urge to take care of a hurt man.”

  She was not going to give in to him. If she were not so perfectly desperate to get her hands on any man, she’d tell him to forget it this very minute. She should’ve known better than to get a man out of a jail!

  “So would I,” she said, “if that man hadn’t helped himself get hurt.”

  He reached for her arm, turned her around, and marched her right through the swinging doors of the saloon. He walked her toward the bar, which was sparsely populated in the middle of the afternoon.

  The bartender stopped what he was doing to come to meet them.

  “Jonas,” Eagle Jack said, “have you seen those Kentucky fakers since yesterday?”

  “Not a glimpse,” the man replied. “Heard they left town after they won your mare.”

  “They stole her,” Eagle Jack said. “Any word which way they went?”

  “Nope.”

  “Much obliged.”

  He dragged Susanna back out to the street as unceremoniously as he’d taken her in there. Back on the sidewalk, she pulled loose from his grip.

  “Don’t touch me again,” she told him.

  He was walking much faster than she’d thought possible.

  “Don’t stand in my way again,” he said.

  “Look,” she said, “you’re my trail boss, not my boss. Nobody drags me anywhere, much less into a saloon.”

  “What difference does it make? You’ve already been in the jail today. That’s no place for a lady, either.”

  “Social dictates don’t tell me where to go. Neither does any one person. Especially not a man.”

  He threw her the briefest glance.

  “Never,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said, with a trace of that irritating grin of his, “get the burr out from under your saddle. You’re the one who said you aren’t leaving my side.”

  “What I said was that I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  He shrugged.

  “Same thing.”

  “I could’ve kept my eye on you over the bar-room door.”

  “Aw, come on,” he drawled. “You’d argue with a fence post, Susanna.”

  “Mrs. Copeland to you.”

  “I thought we were friends,” he said, with a teasing, sideways glance. “You can call me Eagle Jack.”

  He absolutely did have the most aggravating way about him.

  Then she remembered.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said. “You do need to call me either Susanna or Mrs. Sixkiller.”

  “What?”

  He stared at her as he stepped down off the sidewalk and held out his hand to steady her as she did the same. His brown eyes showed such surprise that she wanted to laugh.

  “On the trail we’ll have to pretend to be married,” she said. “It’s the only way the men will respect my presence. I said that at the jail before you took the job.”

  He shrugged. “No problem. I’ll get your cattle to Kansas.”

  He looked down the side street they’d just turned into. “If by some miracle I have reason to reach for my gun,” he said, “get away from me.”

  “Look,” she said, “you’re working for me now. You can’t be going off somewhere tracking horse thieves…”

  His hard glance stopped her tongue.

  “I’m not leaving Salado until I know for sure they’ve hightailed it.”

  “Ever since we turned into this street, I’ve known you were coming to get your horse and start out on their trail,” she said. “I cannot allow it. My business is urgent and now, as my foreman, it’s your business, too.”

  That made him get serious at last.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  Now he, too, was irritated.

  “I told you I’d get your cattle to Kansas, and I will.”

  This time she heard him.

  “Our agreement is less than an hour old and already you’re going back on it,” she said, in her most formidable manner. “Don’t even try that with me, Eagle Jack.”

  “I’m not. I just said I’d do it.”

  “And I will help you do it. I’m not letting my cattle out of my sight, either.”

  He gave her a frustrated look.

  “Take a deep breath, Mrs. Copeland. I’ll trail your cattle to Kansas. You have my word.”

  The way he spoke and the way he set his jaw then made her know that it would do no good and quite a bit of harm if she said another word a
bout it. He could be quite formidable himself, could Eagle Jack Sixkiller.

  Walking steadily, he strode up to the wide opening of the livery stable where a boy was sweeping the hard dirt of the entrance.

  “Howdy, Mr. Sixkiller,” he said.

  “Nathan. You seen those Kentuckians with the gray running horse today?”

  Nathan seized that excuse to lean on his broom.

  “They lit out,” he said.

  “They say where they’re headed?”

  “All I heard was that short one—you know that short, fat one?”

  He wouldn’t go on until Eagle Jack had nodded.

  “Well,” Nathan said, basking in such close attention from not one, but two adults, “that ’un was sayin’ that lots of outfits goin’ up the trail are braggin’ they got a whole remuda full o’ fast horses.”

  Eagle Jack thought about that.

  “Any mention of one trail in particular?”

  “No sir. Not that I know of.”

  Eagle Jack nodded.

  “Let me see your horses for sale,” he said. “I need to get on the road.”

  Susanna walked around to the pen in the back with them and watched Eagle Jack Sixkiller pick a horse from the dozen or so that Nathan drove into a trot and then a lope along the fence. Her trail boss was as good as his word in that respect, at least.

  He didn’t give them more than a glance apiece at each gait until he made his choice.

  “Get that tall bright sorrel ready,” he said, to the boy, “I’ll be right back.”

  Then he looked at Susanna.

  “You have thirty minutes to take care of any un-finished business, get your horse, and be ready to leave town,” he said. “I’m going to the bank, the saddle shop, and back to the livery here. In that order.”

  “Then so am I,” she said.

  His jaw hardened and the skin tightened across his high cheekbones.

  His brown eyes looked almost black as they bored into hers.

  He wanted to tell her to get lost. She knew that as certainly as if he’d blurted it out.

  She waited. This was where she’d find out if he really was a man of his word.

  “At the bank I’ll get money to pay you back for the bail,” he said.

  “I won’t take it,” she said. “You can’t buy your way out of our deal.”

  For some reason that brought the glint of humor back into his eyes, even if he did shake his head in despair.

  “I wouldn’t even think of trying,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  Eagle Jack cudgeled his brain as they walked the two blocks to the bank. He had to think of something. He had to think.

  By damn, it was going to be harder to escape from Susanna Copeland than from the Salado Jail. He would have to take her cattle north, yes, because he had said he would and never would he let it be said that Eagle Jack Sixkiller went back on his word.

  But that didn’t mean he had to have this bossy woman as his constant shadow.

  He decided to try his famous charm again. After all, he had never met a woman he couldn’t melt right down into her shoes if he put his mind to it. He was known as a ladies’ man all over Texas, wasn’t he?

  “Sorry if I’m walking too fast for you, Susanna,” he said, slowing his pace and flashing his smile at her. “If you want to go and get your horse, you can meet me—”

  She interrupted.

  “I’m not falling behind, am I?”

  It was true. Her long legs had kept up with his every step since they’d left the livery.

  “And my horse is tied near the saddle shop. I’ll get him when we’re done there.”

  Her blue eyes met Eagle Jack’s with an annoyed glance.

  Unfortunately, his charm might not work every time. At least, not on her.

  Which made her a very unusual woman, indeed.

  And it made her a challenge. He was not going to let her ruin his perfect record, especially not when she was one of the most beautiful women he’d come across in all his adventures.

  “You needn’t be in such a hurry,” she said. “I bailed you out of that stinking jail to hire me a crew and I intend to see that you do it before we leave Salado.”

  Quick anger seared his nerves. She was a challenge, all right. His headache flared, its pounding worst right between his eyes.

  “I’ll get you a crew,” he said, through clenched teeth, “in my own good time.”

  “We’ll need them tonight,” she said. “My cattle should be at Brushy Creek when we get there.”

  He stopped in front of the saddle shop and stared at her.

  “How many cattle?”

  “I’m guessing close to nine hundred, but it’ll depend on how many more the brushpoppers can catch. My guess was around seven hundred head already gathered when I left home this morning.”

  More than he’d imagined, from the looks of her clothes. Way more. Throwing them in with his would make one of the biggest herds on the trail. He would need four more men, at least.

  But it did explain one thing.

  “Is that why your husband sent you to hire the crew?”

  “My husband has long since gone on to his great reward,” she said, with a bitter irony in her tone, “whatever that might be.”

  Well. A widow. So she wasn’t married, after all.

  But why did he care? She’d be just as much trouble romantically as she was in every other way.

  And just as surprising, probably. He’d like that.

  “Did you kill him?” he said.

  She gave a little burst of laughter.

  “No. But I’m glad to see I’ve got my bluff in on you.”

  He grinned.

  “I didn’t really take you for a killer,” he said, “but you don’t sound too sad about him being six feet under.”

  “I’m not. He was a bully and a brutal man in many ways. I wish I’d thought twice before I married him.”

  Eagle Jack’s headache couldn’t keep his curiosity down. He always wanted to know why a woman did what she did. Women were fascinating creatures because all of them were different from one another—except for the fact that they didn’t think one bit like men.

  “Why did you?”

  For the first time, she hesitated.

  “I was a foolish young girl,” she said. “Too young to know better.”

  “Did he beat you?”

  It was a personal question that would have offended many women but she seemed to recognize the spirit in which he’d asked it.

  “At the very first, he would have,” she said, seeming to think it through as she spoke, “but even though I was very young, I wouldn’t stand for it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “When he raised his hand to me, I told him if he hit me he’d better never go to sleep drunk again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I would sew him up in the bedsheet and beat him senseless with the broom.”

  Eagle Jack threw back his head and laughed, in spite of his pain.

  “I’m surprised he’d put up with that.”

  “We were on the move by then,” she said. “It was too much trouble for him to stop and find somebody else to be his servant.”

  She glanced up at him sideways. A matter-of-fact glance.

  “Everett was a lazy cuss,” she said. “He liked his food and drink and he liked his sleep.”

  He shook his head, grinning in spite of his pain. She was spunky, he had to hand her that.

  But he had to stop this line of thinking. He’d fallen into a whole more with her than a dalliance—he’d fallen into a whole lot of work in a short amount of time. He’d better get his mind on the task ahead.

  “We’ve got a lot to get done today,” he said. “What kind of help do you have?”

  “An older couple, May and Jimbo—they live in my cabin.”

  “They can’t—,” he said.

  “—hold a herd,” she interrupted. “I know. I asked the men who gathered the cat
tle not to leave them until we get there.”

  “Are you telling me that you’ve been running around all over town trying to hire men that you have to have tonight?”

  “Pretty much. Tucker, the brushpopper who’s running my roundup, promised to stay there with his men until I get home with some help.”

  The look in her eyes was earnest.

  “I’m paying them by the head and I know there’s a couple of dozen more cow and calf pairs in the mesquite out there.”

  Eagle Jack felt trapped and weary already.

  “So we also have to count cattle tonight.”

  Susanna looked exasperated.

  “Or today, if we get there before dark,” she said, “which might happen if we don’t stand around here jawing all afternoon.”

  Three young men came out of the saddle shop, pushing both doors open, talking quietly among themselves about the saddle one of them carried.

  “Excuse me,” Susanna said, as they started past. “Do any of you happen to need a job? Would you like to go up the trail?”

  Shocked that a strange lady had spoken to them on the street, they stopped and turned. Too shy to meet Susanna’s gaze, they looked at Eagle Jack.

  “I—” he began. He didn’t quite know what he was going to say and Susanna didn’t let him find out.

  “This is my husband,” she said, “Mr. Sixkiller. We’re looking for drovers to go up the Chisholm Trail.”

  It was all he could do not to grab her and shake some sense into her. It was all he could do not to turn on his heel and walk away. She had no business butting into the job she’d hired him to do.

  But these did look like fairly steady men. And he did have to have some help. No way did he intend to ride around a herd all night long by himself. Not to mention who would hold the cattle while he rode all over the countryside tomorrow trying to hire the oldest son of every war widow hanging on by the skin of her teeth or some hired hand who didn’t know he was too old and broken-down to stand up to life on the trail. He couldn’t wait for his own men to come with his herd from home because he had to get after Molly as soon as he could.

  So he did what he’d done a thousand times in his adventurous life and grabbed the situation to make the best of it. If these men turned out to be lazy or trouble, he could replace them when he got to Waco.