The Lover

by Genell Dellin

  Eagle Jack raised an eyebrow. “She’s prepared,” he said thoughtfully.

  Susanna made a face at him. “Tell her she can’t go,” she said. “Just the way you told me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, folding his arms across his saddle horn and relaxing to enjoy the spectacle. “You seem to be telling her that yourself.”

  “You can see she won’t listen to me,” Susanna said, her voice rising with every word. “She never does.”

  She turned around to see Maynell already perched on the wagon seat, her coat folded neatly beside her and the bucket of plums set carefully between her feet.

  “It’s for your own good,” Maynell said. “Give up the fight, Suzy.”

  “You need to be here,” Susanna said. “Daniel can’t be more than sixteen years old.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Maynell said serenely.

  “Jimbo’s a homebody. Surely he doesn’t really want to travel so far away.”

  “Jimbo’s been actin’ like an old man,” Maynell said. “This here trip’ll be good for him.”

  Susanna whirled around to look at Eagle Jack again. “Did you tell Jimbo he could be one of the drovers on the trail?”

  He spread his hands in a show of innocence. “This is the first I’ve heard about it,” he said, in an entirely too reasonable tone, “but I can always use an extra hand.”

  It made Susanna want to take his horse away from him and make him ride on the wagon seat with Maynell.

  “Jimbo’s too old to be a drover, and you know it.”

  “He can help wrangle the remuda,” Eagle Jack said. “And dig your fire pits.”

  Can help, not could help.

  Susanna turned her back on him and gave Maynell her sternest look. “May, you get down from there this minute and get to thinking about Daniel’s supper,” she said. “Who’s going to cook for him if you’re gone?”

  “Daniel’s been batching it since his mother died three year ago,” Maynell said. “He’ll do fine. It’s poor Eagle Jack I’m cookin’ for.”

  Susanna was incensed.

  “Poor Eagle Jack? I’ll be cooking for him!”

  “Yeah,” Maynell said sarcastically, “and not a pie to be seen for a hundred miles around your camp.” Scornfully, she swept her gaze away from Susanna and smiled at Eagle Jack. “These here plums’ll ripen in a day or two,” she said, “and I packed a Dutch oven to make a cobbler in.”

  Eagle Jack gave her that irresistible grin of his.

  “I can’t wait,” he said. “If there’s anything I love, it’s pie.”

  “Always did like a brown-eyed handsome man with good, common sense,” said Maynell.

  They got the herd headed north and strung out just right for the number of drovers they had and were five miles from Brushy Creek when the moon came up. Eagle Jack rode out a little way ahead of the lead cattle, but not very far.

  Until then, he had dropped back often to ride beside one or the other of the drovers. He was beginning to watch all of them with an eye to whether he wanted to take them with him after they joined the crew from the Sixes and Sevens. He took only the best, most reliable, toughest men north—that was a hard lesson he’d learned from the drives of the past.

  He felt his lips curve in a wry smile.

  He was fooling himself. How could he even have that thought when this time he was taking two women and an excitable old man up the trail? No, obviously, he hadn’t learned that lesson at all.

  Actually, it wasn’t his fault, though. He hadn’t had a choice about taking Susanna along, not after he’d stepped into the middle of her deal with Adams and left her vulnerable, and if Susanna were coming along, he’d had to have Maynell and Jimbo to help him with her.

  That was the only reason he had agreed to it. They’d be a burden in some ways—two people besides Susanna who were more or less helpless in case of attack or disaster—but Jimbo swore he was a crack shot, and he could do a lot of work around the camp.

  Yes, it would definitely be worth doing a little extra baby-sitting, if it came necessary, to have them on the drive. Even if they couldn’t keep Susanna entirely out of his hair, just by their presence they could keep him from trying to be alone with her.

  He’d had to do something to protect himself. During this long, hard day of working cattle he had fought thoughts of Susanna and his desire for Susanna, and he’d decided not to follow his natural inclination to pursue her.

  He wanted, as naturally as he breathed, to pick up that challenge of being the first man to introduce her to kindness and desire. But she was far too complicated a woman for him, and best left alone right now when he had so much responsibility to face.

  And, since she was far too desirable to keep away from without a little help, Maynell and Jimbo would be just the help he needed.

  “Eagle Jack, wait up!”

  He turned in the saddle.

  While he’d been thinking of her, Susanna had passed the herd and almost caught up with him.

  Was it because she was beset with thoughts of him, too? Had she, too, thought of their kiss a thousand times?

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, slowing to a trot to match his when she reached him.

  “I don’t have time to talk,” he said, teasing her. “I have a trail drive to boss.”

  “You don’t have supper, either, until I give it to you,” she tossed back, brandishing a small cloth sack, “and you won’t until I’ve said my piece.”

  He grinned at her sassiness. He couldn’t help it. “I’m not hungry.”

  Except for the taste of you.

  “Eagle Jack, I want to get something straight before we go a step farther,” she said. “You got in my business again today when you sided with Maynell, and I cannot have that all the way to Abilene.”

  There was something about her when she was so deadly serious that brought out the opposite in him. Maybe because her seriousness always seemed about to overcome her somehow. She needed help with it.

  He stopped his horse. Hers stopped, too.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Not going a step farther,” he said, solemnly. “Only following your orders, ma’am.”

  At first he thought she was going to smile, but instead, she scowled at him.

  “This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about,” she said sternly. “You don’t take anything seriously enough.”

  “While you take everything too seriously,” he said.

  “It’s my whole life at risk,” she said. “It’s whether I have a home at the end of this summer.”

  “All our lives are at risk every day,” he said, “if we so much as get out of bed. Even if we don’t, a tree could fall on the house or lightning could strike in through the window and kill us.”

  “I didn’t ride out here for a philosophical discussion,” she said. “I came to tell you to stop getting in my business.”

  “Is this still about your ol’ pard, Mr. Adams?”

  “That is another perfect example,” she said, “but this is about Maynell and Jimbo. All you had to do was back me up and they’d be at Brushy Creek taking care of the place like they’re supposed to instead of leaving everything I have in the care of a half-grown kid.”

  He shrugged and heeled his horse to start moving again.

  “You knew I like pie,” he said. “Maybe if you’d made me some for supper last night, I’d’ve been in a different frame of mind when Maynell starting bribing me.”

  She hit her saddle horn with her fist and the sack almost bounced out of her hand.

  “Listen to me, Eagle Jack Sixkiller. We cannot both share the responsibilities and boss this trail drive if you won’t ever take my opinion into account or let me make a decision.”

  He stifled a grin.

  “Then I’ll boss it,” he said, in a reasonable tone. “It’s the only way.”

  “Over my dead body,” she said, from between clenched teeth.

  “Now, now, sweetheart. No
need to be so agitated. Everybody knows the first year of marriage is the hardest.”

  Her eyes flashed fire at him in the moonlight.

  “I am so sorry I ever had the thought of pretending to be married to you, much less that I did it!” she cried.

  “But someday you’ll be glad,” he said.

  “You make me so mad I’d take your supper right back with me if I wouldn’t have to listen to Maynell go on about it for the next three months—day and night, seven days a week.”

  “That’s another reason I brought Maynell along,” he said. “I was thinking I might never get fed, otherwise. Not anything, much less pie.”

  She threw the sack at him and he caught it.

  “There,” she said. “Maynell sent it to you, but I cooked it. Eat it if you dare.”

  “Childish threats don’t become you, Susanna,” he said.

  She was turning her horse to ride away, but she paused to glare at him. In her fury, she was more beautiful than ever.

  Her cheeks were dusted with moonlight, her hair was pulled back tightly and held in one long braid, her shirt was too big for her. It fell away from her neck to show the delicate wing of her collarbone. He wanted powerfully to lay down a line of kisses along it and nestle his mouth into the hollow of her throat.

  “Susanna,” he said, “put your mind at rest. I couldn’t be more serious about this drive.”

  “Empty words do not become you, Eagle Jack. I know we’ve hurried like mad all day and now we’re driving all night only so you can look for your stolen horse.”

  He sighed. Beautiful or not, she would try anyone’s patience. Sometimes the things she said and did would even try the forbearance of his grandfather, who was imperturbability itself.

  At those times he wished he’d never left the comforts of home for adventure. He wouldn’t have, if he’d known he’d find such aggravation, too.

  Or would he? Words and behavior aside, she looked like an absolute angel in the moonlight. Maybe just looking at her would be worth all the vexation.

  “Have a little trust in me, won’t you, Susanna? Last night you said that you trust me.”

  That stopped her for a minute.

  “I do,” she said, slowly, “deep down. But in little things I don’t. You’re good but you’re selfish, too, Eagle Jack. You’re out to get what you want.”

  “And you’re not,” he drawled. “That’s what I like best about you, Susanna.”

  “No need for sarcasm,” she said. “Just remember that you’d better consider my opinion and let me share in making the decisions or…”

  “Or…what?”

  She went still in the saddle, sitting there with her horse waiting to head back to the herd and the moon rising behind her.

  “I don’t know yet, Eagle Jack.” Her voice was flat with discouragement, almost despair. “I have no choice now but to go on with you but I cannot stand to be helpless and powerless. Now I don’t even have free rein in the cook’s job—Maynell will be meddling every minute in what I cook and how I cook it.”

  She stopped and looked at him very straight.

  “And a miracle would have to happen for me to have the slightest chance of influencing even one decision about the trail.”

  “At the jail, you said whoever you hired as trail boss would make the trail decisions.”

  She nodded.

  “I know. But this trip will last for a long time and I have no place in it. What am I, the errand girl? That’s what I always was to Everett—errand girl and servant girl.”

  Eagle Jack thought about that while he turned his head to check on the herd. It was a crying shame that she’d been so young when she met Everett, so desperate to get out on her own that she had married him.

  That was one of the big injustices of life because she didn’t deserve to be scarred this way. It would affect her for the rest of her life. It might prevent her from ever trusting another man.

  Her cattle were moving into view now, coming steadily closer.

  “Turn your horse and ride ahead with me,” he said. “If you were a man who owned this herd—a man who had never been up the trail before—things would be no different.”

  She threw him a doubtful look.

  “It’s true, Susanna. The trail’s a dangerous place. A greenhorn can’t make the decisions because too many lives are at stake.”

  “The first person who ever went up the trail had never done it before,” she said.

  He nodded and they rode along in silence for a while, the cattle lowing behind them.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” he said, finally. “Why don’t I teach you? Once you know some things, then your opinion will be worth considering.”

  The grateful look and the smile she gave him made him wish he’d thought of that a long time ago.

  “I’m not saying we’ll always agree on what to do, Susanna, but I can use another set of eyes and ears. This is a big country and nobody can notice everything all the time.”

  The moonlight fell across her face. Her eyes were shining.

  “You mean to take me on scout with you?”

  “Whenever you’re not needed with the cooking, yes. Feeding the men is still the most important.”

  “Eagle Jack, I could kiss you,” she blurted. “I would love to scout with you and learn to be a trail driver!”

  That made him smile. It also made him smile that she held his gaze as if to say her word was good, even though her sheepish grin told him she hadn’t meant to say that.

  He could not resist that combination. Of course, when could he ever resist the offer of a kiss?

  “Then I’ll collect right now,” he said, and stood in the stirrup to lean across the narrow space between their horses.

  She blushed beneath the moondust on her cheeks. “I…it was just a figure of speech…”

  He grinned. “I feel the same way,” he said confidingly. “I could kiss you any time at all, Susanna.”

  “I said it, I guess I’ll have to pay up,” she said playfully.

  “Right. You wouldn’t ever want to go back on your word.”

  Her eyes twinkled as she leaned out of the saddle to meet him.

  “You are the best at acting sincere of anyone I’ve ever known,” she said.

  “No acting,” he told her, and brushed her lips with his. “I am the soul of sincerity.”

  “I only meant I could just kiss you on the cheek,” she amended.

  He kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  “Maybe that’s just what you thought you meant,” he said, “but don’t you like this better?”

  He held her gaze with his. She had the most beautiful eyes.

  “Yes…” she said.

  He kissed her again, just a friendly peck, then he sat back down in the saddle. It would be best to leave her wanting more.

  What he really wanted was to pull her off her horse onto his, into his lap, and kiss her with a long, burning kiss that would tell her exactly how sincere he was about wanting her. But that would scare her again. She might not kiss him back with that same unhesitating instinct as she had done the first time.

  This time, whether she’d just been teasing with him or not, she might tell him not to take such liberties again.

  But he couldn’t believe how much he wanted to do exactly that. He wanted to start it all again and hold that sweet weight of her breast in his hand and take up exactly where they’d left off the night before.

  He could hear the echo of that tone in her voice, though, that ring of fear that had made him hate Everett who had hurt her in the past. And that other boy who had kissed her and left her, too.

  Even if it would be good for her to lead her into that kindness and desire she had talked about, this wasn’t the time. He wanted her to come to him.

  No, he didn’t. That wouldn’t be good because it’d complicate everything too much.

  And she was the most desirable woman he’d ever met, bar none.

  Who was she, anyway, thi
s independent, jail-invading rancher, Susanna Copeland? This beautiful person who played kissing games but talked to him as straight as any man would have?

  What other woman on the face of the earth would have come right out and told him what she needed and how she felt about her job just now, instead of pouting and playing some kind of emotional game to try to make him figure it out on his own? Certainly not Talitha Gentry, whom he’d been seeing these last few months while he’d been living at home on the Sixes and Sevens.

  Talitha was the queen of pouting and game playing, especially since he’d danced so many dances with Emma Dooley and Agnes Burke and all those other girls at the Box O Ranch social last month. Talitha was just like all the rest—she wanted to rope and tie him and make him settle down.

  That thought brought him back to himself. There was no comparison between Talitha and Susanna. Susanna and he were in a business arrangement, not a personal one.

  That was a fact he had to remember.

  He had thought, during those first moments when she’d come to the jail, that he might have a dalliance with her, but not anymore. Her feelings ran far too deep to risk that.

  And that was the real reason he hadn’t truly kissed her tonight.

  But he still wanted to, and knowing him, he usually did what he wanted, sooner or later.

  It had done him absolutely no good to bring Maynell and Jimbo along. They wouldn’t be a bit of protection to him if he was going to invite Susanna to scout with him.

  They rode along in comfortable silence with Eagle Jack wondering, every step of the way, why he had invited her to be his companion for a large part of every day. That hadn’t been necessary. Not at all. She herself had said that she had no choice but to go ahead with this drive, and he could’ve kept it on his terms.

  He’d probably done it because of Cookie. When they threw this bunch in with the Sixes and Sevens crew and Cookie saw that he had two other cooks—and women, at that—for competition, he’d throw a wall-eyed fit. Maybe one woman wouldn’t be so bad. If Susanna went on scout, it would just be Maynell vying with Cookie for the reputation of best cook on the trail.