“Thank you.” To her surprise, he walked around the mules, checking the harness, then climbed into the wagon beside her. He would have taken the reins from her hands, but she said, “No,” and reminded him that Joe’s will prohibited anyone from helping.
Before Dal set off in front of the herd, he rode up beside the wagon. “You’re welcome to stay with the drive until we reach Fort Worth,” he said, then glanced at Alex. “Do you mind having company? We could give our friend here a horse.”
“I don’t mind.” She braced her leg against the fender and smiled at their guest. “Hang on.”
The wild careening ride across the prairie range didn’t terrify her as it once had, but she’d never really become accustomed to it. Today, however, with someone watching, she was proud of how well she managed. It occurred to her that she was succeeding, doing what she had to do. A burst of self-confidence straightened her shoulders, surprising her. She hadn’t experienced any sense of genuine self-confidence since the accident.
Dal waved her off near a grassy-banked creek and galloped back toward the herd. Grady and the observers’ wagons hadn’t yet arrived, but today, the vast open spaces didn’t frighten her. Twisting on the seat, she found her crutch, poked the tip on the ground to scare away any lurking snakes, then remarked, “I wish I knew your name. I don’t know how to address you.”
He hesitated, then used a finger to draw something on the seat space between them. When Alex frowned, he did it again. “John! Is that your name?”
What he did next paralyzed her. Reaching out a hand, he patted her flat skirt. Gazing steadily into her eyes, he raised her skirt and petticoat. Shock dried her mouth and her heart slammed against her ribs.
“Don’t,” she whispered. She wanted to jump out of the wagon, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Worse, they were alone, and she was defenseless, sitting in the middle of nowhere with a strange man who was pulling up her skirt. Panic stopped her heart, until she realized there was no malice in his gaze. Only a depth of compassion that brought sudden helpless tears to her own eyes.
He pushed her skirt to her lap then looked down at the smooth stump the surgeons had left. And Alex knew agony. This was the first time anyone other than a doctor had looked at what remained of her right leg. She couldn’t think, couldn’t draw the next humiliated breath. She sat as still as a stone and wanted to die. When he touched her knee she gasped, and cognizance returned with the crimson that set her face on fire.
In a flurry of mortification, shame, and fury, she slapped his hand hard and tried to shove down her skirts, but he caught her wrist and forced her to look into his eyes. Sympathy and compassion, sadness and understanding, that’s what she saw, and it crushed her.
Silent tears spilled over her lashes when she realized his touch on what remained of her leg had been as gentle as a lover’s. There had been no revulsion in his gaze, no drawing back. She covered her face with her hands and drew a deep shuddering breath.
Gently, he lowered her skirt then took her hands in his. Waiting. “You want to know how I lost my leg,” she whispered. She was too confused, too deeply rattled to tell a coherent story. Face flaming, she jerked away from him and lowered her crutch. “Perhaps later.”
The shock of what he had done remained with her, and consequently the noon dinner was a slapdash affair, and some of the boys complained. But his steady regard made her nervous and clumsy. She would have preferred not to share her wagon with him in the afternoon, but she couldn’t manage a moment alone with Dal to arrange it. So she didn’t speak or look at him during the ride to the bedding ground, nor did she address him while she prepared supper. But there was not a minute when she didn’t think about the strange incident. She was horrified that he would lift her skirts and look at her leg, that he would touch the stump. Stump was such an ugly word that she cringed even to think it. She couldn’t bear that he had looked at it, touched it.
After washing the supper dishes, she laid out the items she would need in the morning and finally was ready to put away the hated crutch and return to her wheelchair. Instantly John came to her. He pushed her into the shadowy line where the light from the fire and lanterns met the night. How odd that he’d guessed that was where she usually ended the day, away from the wagon and drovers, but sitting where she could watch them. He sat beside her and lifted an eyebrow. When she didn’t speak, he touched her skirt where it lay flat against the chair.
“It was a carriage accident,” she said finally, sounding angry. “My husband was killed, and my leg was crushed.”
He continued to watch her, his expression telling her that he knew there was more.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Alex whispered, looking into his eyes, “but I feel as if I know you.” And somehow he knew her. “You, too, have known sorrow and loss.” She could see that in his face, in his eyes. “I wish I knew your story.”
He turned his face toward the men sitting around the campfire. Tonight Freddy was reciting something from a play, and the drovers were drinking coffee and listening intently. After a few minutes they applauded loudly enough to show their appreciation, but not loud enough to startle the steers on the bedding ground.
Alex didn’t understand the attraction she felt toward this strange man. His attention was flattering, and she supposed the surprise of a man’s interest was part of his appeal. Another part might be the fact that he clearly had been a gentleman at one time. Perhaps that was why her panic had been short-lived when he raised her skirts. Intuition insisted she was in no danger from him.
“Who are you?” she wondered aloud, letting her gaze travel along his profile and wanting to touch the softness of his beard. He didn’t answer, but his gaze was gentle.
They sat in companionable silence at the edge of the darkness even after the drovers began to drift toward their bedrolls. Alex remembered the painful silences that had sometimes opened between herself and Payton, but there was nothing awkward about this silence, nothing edgy or anxious.
It didn’t make sense, but she would miss him dreadfully when he left.
“I don’t care what Frisco said,” Ward stated angrily. “We can’t afford a hotel!” He walked to the observers’ fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. “We’d have to pay for two rooms and meals… if you want to rest, you can do it here.”
They were camped a few miles south of Fort Worth. Close enough that Les could see the boomtown in the distance, but far enough away that their herd didn’t impinge on other herds that grazed outside the town. The grass was good here and the west fork of the Trinity River offered sweet water and a comfortable crossing. She could glimpse an old abandoned fort on top of the bluff overlooking town.
“We’ve been on the trail almost two months and I haven’t seen anything except dust and the tail end of the herd,” she said, looking toward the smoky haze overhanging the town. “I’m longing for a real tub bath and a real bed.” And a night that wasn’t interrupted by her turn on watch. A night without rocks digging into her back or the sounds of male snoring all around her.
“I’ve just told you that we can’t afford two nights in town,” Ward said sharply.
“Luther said the estate would pay for me to stay over and rest.” The stubborn tone in her voice made her pulse accelerate. She knew he wouldn’t strike her, not with people wandering around both camps, but she saw the vein throbbing in his temple and knew his temper was rising. Fear, strong and habitual, closed her throat.
“You. It’s always you,” he said with disgust. “You never think about me!”
The words were intended to make her feel guilty, were intended to manipulate and control. She knew that, perhaps she had always known it, but the ploy was effective just the same. For a moment, she stood very still, trying to summon a tiny bit of courage.
“If you can’t afford a room,” she said, staring down at her boots, “then you stay here. But I’m going.” This was the best thing she could do for herself. “I’m so tired. I need the rest.”
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“Are you defying me?” he asked incredulously. He dropped his coffee cup and his hands opened and closed at his sides.
Exhaustion washed through her body, and her shoulders slumped. She was fatigued to the bone. So weary of trying to please him, of trying to always say and do the right thing, the thing that wouldn’t make him angry. Right now she was worn-out enough to say things she might not have been brave enough to say otherwise.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Alex and Freddy would have given me my share of the inheritance even if I’d dropped out?” The reason she still felt weak and half-ill was because Ward had decided she had to work the drag even if it killed her. She couldn’t stop thinking about that. He had endangered her life even after Alex and Freddy had guaranteed her share of the money.
“Don’t be stupid. We wouldn’t have seen a penny if you’d dropped out! I see through those two. Believe me, they wanted you gone so they would have a larger share for themselves!”
Before the drive began, he might have convinced her, but not now. Her relationship with her sisters was changing. She liked their company, and she was beginning to respect their courage and determination. She cherished this new connection and growing closeness. More than she wanted to win this contest, she wanted her sisters’ acceptance and respect. The realization astonished her and raised a film of moisture to her eyes.
“Are you coming to town with us?” Freddy called.
“I’ll be right there.” When was the last time Ward had smiled? When had she last felt any tenderness toward him? “Please try to understand. All I want to do is sleep for two days.”
For the first time since he’d come calling, she walked away from him without a backward glance and without caring what he thought.
Dal tied John’s cows to the tail of the wagon, then helped Les into the back. He would have assisted Freddy except she slapped his hands away. She sat on the far side of the driver’s seat, as far from any contact with him as she could get, her hat pulled down over her eyes.
Alex rolled up to the wagon. “Buy as many eggs as you can find.” She spoke to Dal, but her gaze fixed on John, who sat in the back of the wagon with Les.
“You can come with us,” Dal suggested. He planned to drop John off, check Les into one hotel and Freddy into another, then purchase the supplies Alex needed and bring them back to camp. Then, finally, he would return to Fort Worth and Freddy.
Alex had never impressed him as a fidgety type of woman, but she was now. Her hands moved over the wheels of the chair, across her lap, up to her hair, touched her lips, then returned to her lap. She shook her head. “No, maybe I’ll go into town tomorrow with Luther.” A small smile curved her lips. “Good-bye, John. Have someone change the dressing on your ribs.”
Dal flicked the reins over the horses’ backs, gave Grady a wave, and one to Caleb, whom he was leaving in charge of the herd. “You didn’t bring a satchel,” he said, flapping the reins.
“I don’t need one,” Freddy snapped. “I’m only doing this because you swore you’d force me if I didn’t come willingly.”
“That’s correct.” He pressed his lips together and considered. Clearly, she wasn’t going to help relieve an awkward situation. All right, he’d add another stop to his list of chores. She was, by God, going to cooperate, like it or not. He would buy her a pretty nightgown and a ribbon for her hair. “You are one exasperating woman,” he muttered grimly.
“Got to hell, Frisco.”
“You’re supposed to say that afterward, not before.”
He let John out of the wagon when the man tapped him on the shoulder. Got Les settled into a quiet hotel away from the main street. He all but shoved Freddy into a small hotel at the other end of town, checked them in as man and wife, which bothered him some, and caused her to lift both eyebrows. Then he ordered her a bath, slapped the room key in her palm, and warned her that she better be there when he returned.
That done, he purchased the supplies Alex had requested. Then he stopped by the telegraph office and sent a message to Emile Julie in New Orleans. Before he drove back to the herd, curiosity prompted him to stop by the sheriff’s office where he asked if the sheriff knew anything about the naked man he’d found on the range.
“That’s John McCallister,” the sheriff informed him, standing beside Dal’s wagon, where he could keep an eye on the cowboys whooping it up before they headed north again. He tapped his temple.
“McCallister’s crazy as a coot. Been wandering around out there since the war ended.”
“Union or Confederate?” Five years was a long time to wander alone. Or to live inside a drunken haze. Anyone who said the war was over hadn’t served in it.
“Someone said he spent two years in a Union prison. I guess that’d make just about anyone crazy.” The sheriff shook his head. “You’ve seen the last of him. He ranges south of here, never goes north.” After a minute he added, “McCallister was a doctor before the war. At least that’s what I heard. Hailed from Atlanta.”
They talked a while about the herds outside of town and about the town’s booming growth, then Dal drove back to camp and let Grady help him carry provisions to the chuck wagon. Between trips back and forth, he told Alex what he’d learned about their visitor. She listened, sighing often, while he looked at the sky. Time was passing, and he was as eager as a sixteen-year-old to get back to the hotel and Freddy.
Alex touched his wrist. “Freddy is tough on the outside, but she’s vulnerable inside. Don’t do anything to hurt her, Dal.”
Surprised, he stared down at her. “Did Freddy tell you—”
She laughed. “Why is it that lovers think no one notices their long looks and whispers?”
A flush of color rose beneath his sunburned cheeks. “Freddy and I are not lovers,” he said stiffly. And one night in a hotel wouldn’t change that situation. In his opinion, lovers were a couple with some form of commitment between them. That wasn’t the situation here.
Alex gazed at him with an affectionate smile. “I didn’t like you when we first met. But you’re a good man. Freddy could do worse,” she added, glancing toward the observers’ camp where Caldwell was mounting his horse to ride into town. “Just don’t hurt her.”
He would have sworn that she would lecture him about morality and standards and ruining women. But she turned away and applied herself to the arduous task of pushing the wheelchair through the grass and over the bumpy ground.
He hesitated a moment, then walked up behind her and pushed her back to the chuck wagon. “I like you too, Alex Roark Mills,” he said quietly. “I didn’t expect to admire any of the Roark sisters, but all three of you are very special women.”
They smiled at each other, then she pressed something in his hand. “Give this to Freddy.”
He didn’t look at the bottle she’d put in his palm until he reached the outskirts of Fort Worth. She’d sent Freddy a little vial of perfume.
After leaving the buckskin at the stables, he walked to the barbershop for a haircut, a shave, and a hot tub. The sisters weren’t the only ones who were changing on this journey.
Certainly he’d never expected to spend a night with Freddy Roark. Or anticipated that he’d feel nervous about it. Never in his life had he applied himself to pondering and planning an evening or spent so much time trying to guess what a woman would consider romantic.
The responsibility of it weighed heavily on him. After his haircut and shave, midway through his bath, he drew on his cigar then looked over at the man soaking in the tub next to him.
“Women like romance,” he said, as if picking up an ongoing conversation.
“The decent ones do,” the man agreed with a nod. He tipped the ash off his cigar into his bathwater. “Makes it hard on a man.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” He exhaled a stream of smoke and watched it curl toward the ceiling. “In your opinion, what do women consider most romantic?”
“I don’t have a fricking idea.”
“Neith
er do I.”
“I believe they like flowers,” the other man said after a while. “And poetry.”
“Music, too, I’ve heard.”
Flowers, music, and poetry; it was enough to get him started. He’d do fine once they got to the actual lovemaking. It was that all-important buildup that concerned him.
“You’re Dal Frisco, aren’t you?” his bathing companion inquired.
“Who wants to know?”
“Name’s Hal Morely. I got a hundred bucks bet that you’ll get your herd to Abilene.”
He’d guessed right. A lot of people up and down the trail were watching and had an interest in this drive. Any doubt about staking his reputation on the King’s Walk drive vanished. His name, his livelihood, and his future all rested on winning this contest.
“We’re holding our own,” he said sourly.
Hal Morely stood and reached for a towel. “It might interest you to know that you got trouble coming. I saw a fella named Caldwell talking nose to nose with Hoke Smyth. Old Hoke’s been up before the judge three times for cattle rustling. Looked to me like Caldwell and Hoke were doing a little business.”
Dal frowned. “Thanks for the tip.”
Nothing would happen while they were camped this close to Fort Worth. Besides, right now he was more worried about a small green-eyed semivirgin who could turn him inside out with a look.
Chapter 17
No decent woman ever sat in a hotel room waiting for an illicit lover to arrive, and Freddy knew it. The longer she waited for Dal to return, the more skittish, anxious, and uncertain she became. She would have fled except she had used her leftover bathwater to launder her trail clothes and they were draped around the room, still wet.
Wrapped in a towel, she sat beside an open window letting a warm breeze dry her freshly washed hair while she chewed a fingernail and suffered pangs of regret for ever agreeing to this tryst. What had she been thinking of? In Frisco’s opinion, he was doing right by bringing her here, but he wouldn’t have forced her. At heart he was a man of integrity.
The Best Man Page 24