Amanda waited until Broc signaled it was safe. She had a lot to think about, but she intended to talk to the sheriff. He had to bring Carruthers to his senses before someone got hurt.
Or killed.
Amanda left the sheriff’s office feeling angry and dissatisfied. She’d explained her situation to the sheriff, told him everything Carruthers had done, including running off her stock so he could cause trouble, but the sheriff had told her there was no proof.
“None of his cowhands are going to admit he has told them to run off your cows, intimidate your hands, or threaten to hang Broc Kincaid,” the sheriff had said.
“Doesn’t my word count for anything?” she’d asked. “Broc, Andy, and Leo will vouch for everything I’ve said.”
“He has more hands than you do, and every one of them could say just the opposite. I will be on the lookout for trouble, but he hasn’t done anything I can call him on. When something concrete happens, let me know.”
And that’s where the sheriff had left it. What use was a sheriff if he couldn’t do anything to prevent trouble, only react when it was too late?
“Amanda Liscomb, may I speak to you?”
Amanda turned around to find Priscilla Carruthers behind her on the boardwalk. She was surprised the girl had spoken to her, since Gary said she was angry at Amanda for accusing her father of causing trouble.
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
Priscilla was a tall girl of nineteen, the same age as Amanda. She had her mother’s pretty face and reddish-brown hair combined with her father’s imposing height and broad shoulders. She was expensively, though simply, dressed. Her manners were too queenly for Amanda’s taste, but she laid responsibility for that at the feet of Priscilla’s mother. Today, however, Priscilla looked like a nervous and unsure young woman.
“It’s not you exactly,” Priscilla said, looking even more uncomfortable. “It’s the man who plays the piano for you.”
“Broc?” Amanda was so surprised, she was certain she was standing there with her mouth hanging open.
Priscilla nodded. “I heard one of Dad’s hands, Dan Walch, saying he played the piano and sang. I want to know if he would help me.”
“Help you do what?” Amanda couldn’t imagine what Priscilla could want Broc to do. If her father found out she’d even talked to the foreman of the Lazy T, he’d probably lock her up.
Priscilla blushed and lowered her gaze. “I like to sing. My father bought me a piano, but I don’t have anyone to play for me.”
“I doubt your father would allow Broc on his ranch. He’s furious Broc decided to work for me.”
“I don’t want him to come to the house. Pastor Burns has given me permission to use the church.”
“Broc and I don’t get into town until evening.”
“Papa will let me come in at night as long as he thinks I’m going to the church. We could meet there before he goes to the saloon.”
Amanda could tell the girl was eager for some help, but she didn’t think it was a good idea for Broc to get involved. Her uneasiness must have shown in her expression.
“I can pay him,” Priscilla said. “Papa paid Oscar, and he was awful. I want to sing opera. Mama says I have a good voice, but Papa hates opera and wouldn’t let me sing anything but silly songs.”
Amanda didn’t know much about opera or why Carruthers should hate it, but she did know he would be furious if he found out Broc was helping his daughter.
“I don’t think—”
“Please. Just talk to him, tell him what I said.”
“I’ll tell him, but—”
“All I ask is that he listen to me sing. If he doesn’t think I have the voice to sing on a real stage, I won’t bother him again.”
“Okay, but I can’t guarantee he’ll help you.”
“Dan said Mr. Kincaid used to sing on riverboats.” Priscilla’s expression turned dreamy. “I’d love to sing for people like that.”
Amanda doubted her parents would be happy about that ambition.
“I have my own music.” Priscilla laughed. “Papa says it’s a terrible waste of money, but Mama says—”
Priscilla’s expression changed, and she broke off. Amanda turned to find what had disturbed her and saw Gary hurrying toward them with a face-splitting grin. Her heart sank. It was obvious from Priscilla’s expression she didn’t want to talk to Gary.
“I went out to your place, but your mama said you’d come into town.” Gary spoke directly to Priscilla, ignoring his sister’s presence.
“I was talking to your sister, but now I have to go. I still have several errands to run.”
“I’ll be happy to go with you, carry packages, help you across the street.”
“I’m perfectly capable of doing that for myself. You may have noticed I’m a rather big girl.”
Priscilla had to be taller than half the men in Cactus Bend, something no woman was likely to consider an advantage.
“A lady shouldn’t have to carry her own packages.”
Gary ignored the fact that Priscilla had neither returned his smile nor appeared eager to accept his assistance.
“I wouldn’t like my father to see you helping me. He’s not very happy with your family.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” Gary said, pressing his case. “I already told him I’d be happy to sell him the ranch. I hate cows.”
“I doubt he’d appreciate that attitude either,” Amanda pointed out, annoyed that Gary had tried to undermine the family’s position.
“Not every man wants to be a rancher,” Gary said angrily.
“I’m sure Priscilla’s father knows that,” Amanda said. “However, since ranching is his chosen profession, I doubt he would approve of your lack of appreciation.”
Gary glared angrily at his sister, but Amanda was irritated Gary was practically begging Priscilla to like him. Didn’t he have any pride?
Priscilla looked as uncomfortable as Amanda was annoyed. “Papa has Dan Walch accompany me when I ride into town without him or my mother. I see he’s through with his business. You don’t need to accompany me,” she said to Gary. “It’s only a short distance.” Before he could object, she turned and strode off with a rapid stride more characteristic of a man than a woman.
“I know you couldn’t see the foolish expression on your face,” Amanda told her brother, “but you could hear the silly words falling out of your mouth.”
“I just offered to help carry her shopping. I didn’t know that big ox was with her.”
“You were virtually begging for the attention of a woman who was looking for a way to refuse without being rude. Face it, Gary, she’s not in love with you. She doesn’t even like you.”
“She does like me,” Gary insisted. “I’ve talked to her hundreds of times. Well, dozens. Anyway, she won’t tell me she loves me as long as you and Mama blame her father for everything that goes wrong on the Lazy T. Why can’t you leave her father alone? Don’t you care anything about my happiness?”
Amanda cared about Gary’s happiness, but he wanted to spend his life working in Corby’s saloon while Priscilla wanted to go to big cities and sing opera. They had nothing in common. “Of course I care about your happiness,” she said.
“Then why won’t you help me with Priscilla?”
“Did you know she wants to sing opera?”
“What’s that?”
“She wants to go to cities like Chicago, perform on a big stage, and sing foreign music in a foreign language.”
“Why would she do that?” Gary’s lack of comprehension would have been funny if it hadn’t been so pitiful.
“She probably would have gone to New Orleans or St. Louis by now, but her father won’t let her.”
“I don’t care,” Gary declared. “I’ll follow her anywhere.”
“Mama said opera singers have to go to Europe. Sometimes they stay there.”
“Why would she do that? Texas is better than anyplace in Europe.”
Amanda sighed. “People like different things. I’m afraid Priscilla doesn’t like cows, Cactus Bend, or Texas. Besides, she’s two years older than you.”
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” Gary insisted. “I love her anyway.”
Amanda decided she’d said all she could at this time. “If you want some advice from another woman, don’t press her too hard. No woman wants to feel she’s been pushed into a corner.”
“I’m not pushing her. I’ll wait for years if I have to.”
Amanda hoped her brother would gain a little maturity and perspective in a couple of years. Right now he was acting as if he were fifteen rather than seventeen.
“Then don’t follow her around. Be cheerful, polite, and casual when you run into her. Let her talk about what she’s been doing. Let her decide when to end the conversation. If you don’t seem too anxious, she’ll be more likely to decide she likes you.”
Gary looked suspicious. “How do I know you’re not telling me all the wrong things? I know you don’t like her.”
“I like her just fine,” Amanda tried to assure him, “but I love you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“What do you know about things like this? You’ve never been in love. You don’t even like Corby.”
Amanda thought of the kisses she’d shared with Broc and felt heat flame in her face. Fortunately, Gary was too preoccupied with his own troubles to notice.
“Just because I don’t want to marry Corby doesn’t mean I know nothing about love.”
“How? You’ve never even kissed anybody.”
Amanda didn’t think she blushed, but something about her reaction caught Gary’s attention.
“You have kissed somebody. It’s not Corby, because he would have told me.”
“I didn’t say I’d kissed anyone.”
Gary ignored her. “It’s got to be somebody new. The only new man in Cactus Bend is Broc, but not even his horse would kiss a face that ugly. You’re not sneaking around with the sheriff, are you? I know all you women yammer about how good-looking he is, but he’s married.”
“I wouldn’t kiss Tom Mercer if he were unmarried and the only man in Cactus Bend,” Amanda stated emphatically.
“Well, you kissed somebody,” Gary said. “You had guilt written all over your face, and you were just in the sheriff’s office.”
“If I kissed anyone, it would be a man I cared about very deeply so I’d have no reason to feel guilty.”
“Does Ma know?”
His relentless questioning was making Amanda uncomfortable. “There’s nothing for anybody to know.”
“There’s something,” Gary insisted. “And I’m going to find out what it is. When I do, I’m going to use it to force you to help me make Priscilla love me.”
“You can’t make a person to fall in love with you, Gary. It doesn’t happen that way. Now I’ve got to get back to the ranch.”
But Amanda didn’t have many thoughts to spare for the ranch. She was too busy analyzing her feelings for Broc and coming to the disturbing conclusion she hadn’t been entirely truthful to Gary. If she wasn’t feeling guilty about kissing Broc, why was she anxious that no one know? Was it possible she was ashamed of kissing someone everyone else considered too ugly to like?
“She says she just wants you to play the piano for her,” Amanda said to Broc when they stepped outside the saloon to get a breath of fresh air after performing their first group of songs.
Amanda hadn’t seen Broc when she went back to the ranch, and he and Leo hadn’t come in from work by the time she had to leave for town. He’d reached the saloon so late, they’d barely had time to choose their songs before it was time to perform.
“She said she would come into town one evening and you could work together before it was time for us to perform. She has permission to use the church. She says she wants to be an opera singer. I don’t know anything about opera. Do you?”
“A bit. Can she sing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never even heard her in church, but she said she’ll give up her ambition if you don’t think she has the voice to sing on a professional stage.”
Broc looked thoughtful, and Amanda found herself prey to an unexpected pang of jealousy. She told herself it was stupid, but that didn’t make it go away. She’d never thought of Priscilla as competition, but what if Priscilla did have a fine voice? The other girl would be working with Broc as often as possible. They would have something in common that Amanda couldn’t share.
She told herself not to be foolish. Broc was leaving Cactus Bend in a few days, and neither she nor Priscilla was likely to see him again. She ought to get her feelings under control so she wouldn’t be hurt when he left.
“I wouldn’t mind listening to her, but I’ll have to do it soon.”
As if she needed a reminder that he would be leaving. “A few of her father’s cowhands are in the saloon this evening. I’ll see if I can get one of them to tell her to be here tomorrow.” She was relieved Broc didn’t seem eager.
“What are you doing out here?” Corby had apparently come looking for them when he realized they weren’t in the saloon.
“We came out for some fresh air,” Broc said. “All that cigar smoke is bad for Amanda’s voice.”
“It hasn’t bothered her before now,” Corby said.
“How would you know when you’ve never heard her sing in better conditions?”
“Her voice sounds fine to me. It always has.” Corby looked at Amanda as if he expected some sort of praise.
“It would sound better if she didn’t have to wait on tables when she wasn’t singing.”
“The men come here because they like to see her. They don’t really care if she sings or not.”
“If they didn’t care, you wouldn’t be paying her more to sing,” Broc said. “We won’t stay out here long, but she needs to clear her lungs.”
“That smoke can’t be any worse for her than the dust at the ranch,” Corby said. “I end up coughing and sneezing every time I go out there.”
“Then I would suggest that you stay in town where you’re safe.”
Amanda tried to hide her amusement at Corby’s irritation. “I’d live on that ranch all the time if Amanda would marry me. I’m so crazy about her I’d even learn to like cows.”
Amanda nearly laughed. Corby would die of boredom in less than a week.
“It’s time to sing again,” Corby announced. “The men are getting restless.”
“Are you ready?” Broc asked Amanda.
She nodded and led the way back into the saloon.
The next twenty minutes went by quickly. Amanda couldn’t believe how easy it was to sing when Broc played or how much she enjoyed it when he sang duets with her. She moved among the tables trying to pay a little attention to each man so no one would feel overlooked. The only thing she refused to do was dance with the men whenever Broc played a lively number. She couldn’t stand the thought of any man’s arms around her except Broc’s.
She noticed Dan Walch was in the saloon this evening. She didn’t remember having spotted him before, but she hadn’t forgotten that he’d helped her and Broc avoid being caught by Carruthers’s men. She decided to ask him to take the message to Priscilla, so when she finished her last song, she worked her way over to where he was leaning against the bar. When the applause died down, she turned to him. “I wanted to thank you for what you did for me and for Broc,” she said in a voice she hoped was soft enough that it wouldn’t be overheard. “I realize it could have gotten you into a lot of trouble.”
He nodded his head, looked uncomfortable, and glanced to where some of Carruthers’s men were seated at a table together.
Amanda wondered why he wasn’t sitting with the other men and why he seemed so uncomfortable. “I want you to take a message to Priscilla Carruthers for me.” Dan’s mood immediately went from uneasy to agitated.
“I’m sorry,” Dan said, “but I can’t do that.”
Amanda
wondered if there was some reason for his refusal. She didn’t want to get anyone in trouble with Carruthers. He could be dangerous when crossed.
“That’s all right. I’ll ask someone else.”
“It’s not that,” Dan said. “I need to talk to you and Broc.”
“Why?”
“I know where to find your missing cows.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I don’t know where Dan is,” Amanda told Broc. “He just said he’d meet us, then left the saloon. I didn’t see him again.”
They were two miles out of town, about three miles from the ranch. Amanda would much rather have been riding her horse, but her mother still insisted that she continue to use the buggy.
“I only talked to him a couple times,” Broc said. “But he seemed like an honest man.”
She wanted to think he was, but she couldn’t completely trust anyone who worked for Carruthers. “Why would he say he wanted to meet us, then not show up? Why would he say he knows where our cows are if he doesn’t?”
“I don’t know,” Broc said. “Something must have happened.”
If he’d asked them to meet him at a special place, she might have suspected a trap, but he hadn’t. One of the other men had been eager to take the message to Priscilla, so that wasn’t the problem.
“I wish he hadn’t said anything,” Amanda said. “I couldn’t think about anything else all evening.” She noticed a horseman a good way up the trail. “Do you think that’s him?” she asked Broc.
“We’ll know in a few minutes.”
Apparently Dan felt it was safer to meet them where it was unlikely anyone else might see them together. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she said when he fell in beside them.
“Are you in any danger?” Broc asked.
“I would be if Carruthers had any idea what I’m doing.”
“He wasn’t in the saloon tonight.” She wouldn’t have missed him. He always insisted that she wait on him.
“But some of his men were. Two of them even followed me out, anxious to know what I’d said to keep you talking to me so long.” His laugh was mirthless. “They wanted to try the same thing.”
When Love Comes Page 17