“Grady tells me that you’ve been driving the chuck wagon around the ranch like some kind of hell cart, and making him eat five meals a day.”
Alex rolled her chair close to the wheel of the chuck wagon and touched the wooden spokes. “I’m taking your advice, Mr. Frisco. Trying to set my fears aside and do what I must.” She started every day with a lump of fear clogging her throat and went to bed at night with the same lump, only it felt larger.
Tilting his head back, he considered the stars shining in a black sky. “Going to be clear tomorrow.” He let a silence stretch between them while she fidgeted with the wheels of her chair. “This trip is going to be hard on you, harder yet on your pride.” She knew he referred to that nemesis of her life, the demeaning fire pit, and the crawling on the ground it necessitated. “Can you go the distance, Alex?”
Could she? Was there a point at which she wouldn’t be able to take it anymore? When she would give up?
“I don’t have a choice,” she said in a low voice. Remembering Ward Hamm’s gossip, she lifted her head. “Will you go the distance, Mr. Frisco?”
He laughed. “I don’t have any choice either. We’ve all got a lot riding on the success of this drive.”
“In your honest opinion, Mr. Frisco, what are our chances of success?” Her hands tightened in her lap. “I don’t wish to put myself through this ordeal if there’s no real possibility that we’ll succeed.”
She had been driving the wagon at breakneck speeds just as he’d said, practicing at handling her terror, and she was covered with bruises and small scrapes. Her fingers were burned from lifting hot pans and lids, her nails broken. Her leg ached and throbbed from standing and walking with the crutch. She was sore all over. Even her eyelids stung from worrying instead of sleeping at night. And all of this had happened before the drive even began.
“I can’t guarantee success,” he said finally. “Too many things can happen. We’re going to lose some beeves, that’s a given. I can’t promise that we’ll get two thousand steers from here to Abilene. But we’re going to try like hell.”
“I see.” She wanted ironclad promises, unbreakable guarantees. But they didn’t exist.
“Good night, Mr. Frisco,” she whispered, turning her chair toward the back door.
Freddy waited for him in front, rocking on the porch swing and listening to the deep-throated frog sounds of spring. The weather was still fickle, warm and sweet one day, wet and chilly the next, but the days were longer now.
As if her thoughts conjured him, she heard Dal’s boots on the porch steps and looked up as he sat in the swing beside her. Instantly she frowned. She had expected him to take one of the horn chairs. Edging slightly away from the muscled heat of his thigh and the scent of leather and cigars and that indefinable clean scent of a man who lived his life outdoors, she arranged her skirts and tried to decide if she should just blurt out the question, or wait for an opening.
“You worry me the most,” he said, not mincing words on a cordial beginning. “This cattle drive isn’t a theater production staged for your personal amusement or enjoyment. You’re not along to provide entertainment for the drovers, you’re there to work. And work well, not the half-hearted effort you’ve been putting in.”
Gasping, she shifted to face him. “I’m holding my own!”
He stared at her in the light falling through the window behind them. “You have the most potential, Freddy, but you aren’t using it. You let Les set the pace, and you keep up with her, but with your natural ability, you should be able to rope better, shoot better, and ride better.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t plan to make cowboying my life’s work! And I don’t need to rope better, shoot better, or ride better to portray those actions on the stage.”
“Is that what you intend to do when this is over? Return to the stage?”
“I plan to buy a theater in San Francisco with my share of the inheritance. Wouldn’t that be something?” Excitement sparkled in her eyes. “The dream of a lifetime. And it would be my theater, so I could pick whatever role I wanted, and no one could say I wasn’t ready to play it.” She saw herself standing before a maroon-velvet curtain, bowing graciously and bending to pick up one of the many bouquets showering the stage. The dream was so real she could almost hear the applause.
“None of that will happen unless we get the herd to Abilene.”
They were back to the criticism. “I’m not the only drover on this drive,” she said defensively. Why did he always have to poke and prod until he made her angry?
“One careless puncher can cost the outfit several hundred steers. I’ve seen it happen. Or a cowboy who thinks he knows more than the trail boss and thereby makes a fatal mistake. I don’t want a maverick on this trip, Freddy. And that’s you.”
“You can’t stop me from going!” she said, anger blazing in her eyes.
“Yeah, I can.” They locked gazes. “And I can put you off the drive along the way. My problem is this: Can I trust you to follow instructions?”
There it was, the opening she’d been waiting for. “How do we know if we can trust you?”
His eyebrows clamped into a frown. “I’d say it’s a little late to question my reliability. That issue was decided the day you hired me. What the hell are you talking about?”
There had to be something wrong with her, Freddy decided, because the angry intensity in his eyes made her cheeks grow hot and stirred her physically, something she did not want.
Lifting her chin, she looked directly into his steady stare. “Mr. Hamm says he heard that you went to Lola’s house. He says you kissed Lola on her front porch, then went inside and stayed for over an hour.” Standing, she looked down at him. “Can you explain that?”
“Lay it out, Freddy. Exactly what are you accusing me of?”
“I’d prefer not to accuse you of anything.” Oddly, this was true, and it was an about-face from her initial reaction to the news. “My sisters and I prefer to give you a chance to explain. Then we’ll decide if this drive actually moves out tomorrow.”
Ward’s gossip about Frisco and Lola had struck her like a blow in the stomach, and raised confusing thoughts of yet another betrayal. Then she had realized that she had no claim on Dal Frisco nor he on her. Yet, she couldn’t bear to imagine him with Lola or any other woman.
“I went to Mrs. Roark’s house at her invitation to meet her representative, Jack Caldwell,” he said, sitting back in the swing. At once Freddy understood that standing had been a mistake. The light from the window revealed her expression, but hid his.
“Is it true that you kissed Lola?”
With a sinking heart she realized that he remained silent too long. Slowly the air ran out of her chest, and she sat down, wishing she hadn’t volunteered for this confrontation. Wishing she understood why Dal Frisco mattered so much and when and how such a thing had happened.
“I knew Lola during the war,” he said at length.
She gazed at the hard lines of his profile. “I see.” Jealousy burned the lining of her stomach and made her fists clench. Only by reminding herself that her future was at stake did she manage to force those feelings aside.
“No, you don’t see,” he objected angrily. “Lola and I were business partners in a deal that went sour. Lola double-crossed me and damned near got me killed.”
“But you kissed her at the door,” Freddy insisted, wishing he’d deny it.
“You know Lola; you figure out who kissed who.” Standing, he gazed down at her and the light from the window illuminated the anger thinning his mouth. “If you don’t trust me, then you aren’t going to believe anything I tell you. But you know my history, and maybe you’ll believe that I have a hell of a lot at stake in making this drive successful.” His eyes glittered. “You don’t have to trust that I’ll put your interests first, but you can sure as hell trust that I’ll put my interests first. If I don’t get this herd to Abilene, I’m finished. There won’t be another second chance.”
His hands opened and closed at his sides as he stared down into her face, then he grabbed her waist and pulled her roughly against him. She felt the heat and the hardness of him, the long muscular power of his taut body. And she drew a quick breath when, wide-eyed, she looked into the angry intensity blazing in his eyes.
His mouth came down on hers hard and hot and deliberate. His kiss was so unexpected that Freddy went limp in his arms with shock. She didn’t fight or protest, couldn’t move or breathe. No one had ever kissed her like this, selfishly, unemotionally, taking with no thought of giving. This kiss was hungry, domineering, something that seared and scorched physically and left her mind reeling.
When his mouth released her, his fingers dug into her waist, holding her hard against his hips, and he looked down at her with icy eyes. “That should prove that sometimes a kiss means absolutely nothing.” He almost shoved her away from him. “Good night, Frederick.”
Dal rode directly to the saloon and spent the remainder of the evening staring into a shot glass. If Ward Hamm had walked through the doors, he would have broken every bone in the bastard’s sanctimonious body. Hamm had planted a seed of doubt that would blossom into malignant suspicions if the drive failed to be successful. If the drive failed, people would believe he’d cut a deal with Lola.
Raising the shot glass, he remembered saying that he wouldn’t take the Roark sisters unless they were ready. Well, they weren’t close to ready. Already he had compromised himself.
Staring at himself in the mirror above the back bar, he looked at the whiskey glass hovering in front of his lips. One for the road, and maybe another, then all the worries went away. He was a few swallows from a good night’s sleep.
On the other hand—suppose he actually did drive two thousand head into the pens at Abilene. If he succeeded, he would become a legend. No one would remember the herds that Dal Frisco had lost; and no one would forget the herd that he ran into Abilene against all odds.
Slowly he lowered the shot glass and placed it on the bar. Not tonight.
After spinning two bits across the countertop, he walked outside and released a long breath, looking up at the stars. Tomorrow night he’d see those stars from his bedroll. With Freddy Roark sleeping an arm’s length away.
Chapter 9
The long road to Abilene began a mile from the ranch house.
Frisco waved his hat at the pilot, and Caleb Webster took off like a bullet, galloping north, with Alex racing her team after him. Freddy’s mouth dropped as the chuck wagon flew past her, utensils flapping and banging on the sides, Alex’s chair threatening to break from the ropes tying it on top. She flat could not believe that Alex was driving the careening wagon or that anyone could remain seated during such a maniacal ride. She’d had no idea that Alex would have to do something this dangerous and recklessly crazy. Next came Grady Cole with the remuda of twenty relief and night horses. Luther Moreland and Jack Caldwell followed close behind. Completing the advance parade was Ward Hamm, driving a wagon mounded high with heaven knew what.
Next, the drovers arrived, driving in small herds they had been holding together on the range. The small herds gathered into one huge seething bawling mass of horns and hooves. Freddy’s heart lurched. She considered herself an imaginative person, but not in her wildest fantasy had she visualized what 2,212 longhorns would actually look and sound like when bunched together.
The sea of horns and the bellowing din rendered her and Les speechless. Shocked into silence, they sat frozen on their horses, watching in stunned amazement as the drovers miraculously blended the beeves into a cohesive unit. When the animals began to move out, the herd formed a brown stream of hide and horns that stretched sixty feet across and over a mile long.
Freddy clapped a hand over her thumping heart. More than anything in the world, she yearned to turn tail and ride back to the ranch house, drop into a deep sleep, and awake to discover this had all been an improbable nightmare.
Frisco appeared, riding out of a dust cloud that swirled ten feet high and extended far out onto the range. “You two fall in at the rear,” he ordered, squinting through the dusty haze at the stream of steers. “We’ll keep them strung out so they don’t get overheated, but we’re going to move fast for the next three days to get them road-broke and too worn-out to make trouble. Keep pushing the stragglers and don’t let them lag. Also, we’ve got some cimarrones in this bunch—”
“Cimarrones?” Les inquired in a faint voice. Her face was the color of paste.
“The beeves we pulled out of the thickets and breaks,” Frisco explained curtly. “These are wild cattle who don’t have a herd mentality yet. They’ll be a problem for about three days, then we’ll move beyond their home range and they’ll calm down some. The point is if you see any muleys peel out and start toward you, turn them back into the herd or we’ll lose them.”
Freddy watched the wide band of horns moving past her, and thought about trying to change the mind of a wild steer who was determined to go home. She didn’t exactly see how she was going to do that. Whoever had first decided that it was a good idea to instruct twelve men to take two thousand cattle to a market over seven hundred miles away had to be a raving lunatic.
Studying her expression, Frisco grinned and leaned a forearm on his pommel. “Would you feel better if I rode up ahead and drew some lines and x’s for you?”
She glared at him, then felt her chest tighten. Today Frisco’s eyes were a deep cobalt blue, a stunning contrast to bronzed skin and the lock of dark hair that fell forward on his forehead. He had never looked more handsome or virile than he did this minute. He loved what they were doing. Dust coated his hat brim and his shoulders, and already the sun was hot enough to pull sweat out of a man’s pores and wet down his shirt. The heated stink of cowhide permeated the air, and the horses were restless and edgy with excitement. Every breath pulled dust into the lungs, and something disastrous could happen any second.
But he loved it. Freddy gazed into Dal Frisco’s sparkling eyes and saw his pleasure and excitement, saw that he was as alive at this moment as he had ever been, a man totally in his element. She saw an expression that she wished she had seen after he kissed her. She would have understood his excitement then, would have comprehended the electric vibrancy evident in his tension and anticipation. She didn’t understand it now. Frowning, she told herself that she didn’t want to think about his sensual mouth or lean hard body either. He’d made it clear that kissing her had meant nothing to him, and it meant nothing to her, too.
“There’s the tail end,” Frisco said, nodding into the swirls of flying dust, then looking at Freddy. “I’ll check back with you later.”
Freddy and Les didn’t budge as they watched him canter north, moving up the side of the herd. Freddy swallowed a feeling of abandonment. They were alone now, and she wasn’t ready.
“I can’t do this. I’m scared to death,” Les whispered. “I want to shoot myself.”
“You’d miss your target,” Freddy answered, absently touching the butt of the pistol on her hip. None of the sisters were remarkable shots, but at least they weren’t afraid of guns anymore.
“Oh my God,” Les shouted. They had waited too long. Les’s horse, afraid of being left behind, reared, then bolted after the herd, which had passed them by. Startled and out of control, Les grabbed the saddle horn and fought to keep her seat as her horse galloped into the haze.
Freddy had only a second to watch, then her horse ducked his head, kicked his hind legs, bucked forward and raced after Les. At the first kick, she flew out of the saddle
and hit the ground hard. Dazed and unsure what had happened, only that it had happened faster than she would have believed possible, she gingerly picked herself out of the grass and dirt, gave her head a shake and looked around.
“Damn!” Cursing, she took off at a run, shouting at her horse to come back. This was crazy. She was beginning the drive by chasing after the herd on foot. If she’d had an audience, they would have hooted her offstage.
Within a minute she realized she would never catch her horse. Walker was running full out, cutting up the side of the stragglers and heading north. Freddy wasn’t. She’d discovered that riding boots were never made for running and she was losing ground. When she tripped over a prairie-dog hole and fell flat, she struggled to her feet, then sank back to the ground in hopeless resignation. The drive was minutes old and already she was out of it. She had lost her horse, lost her share of the inheritance, and she hadn’t come within thirty feet of a longhorn.
“Freddy!”
Looking up, she spotted Les, red-faced and sweating, leading Walker toward her. For a minute Freddy thought she had to be imagining things. Catching her horse would have required some hard and skilled riding. Or fantastic luck. However Les had managed it, Freddy wished she had witnessed the feat. Part of her was elated that she hadn’t lost everything. And part of her was disappointed. For a few minutes it had appeared that she had a wonderful excuse to tuck her tail between her legs and walk back to the ranch horse and sanity.
“Thanks, I owe you,” she muttered, climbing back in the saddle. The thing that galled her about this incident was Les’s role in it. She was not accustomed to thinking of Les as competent or adept. After a lifetime of taking care of Les, it sat wrong to have Les take care of her.
“Hurry up. Look how far ahead the herd is.”
“I’ll take this side and you be responsible for that side. And stay out of my way,” Freddy said irritably. Exactly as Frisco had predicted, about a dozen longhorns were falling behind the main herd, wanting to graze instead of trudge north.
The Best Man Page 11