The Best Man

by Maggie Osborne

  “By Wichita, the inheritance will have been decided,” Caldwell said. “Let me tell Lola that you’ve earned the money we’re offering you.”

  Putting all her strength into it, she slapped him as hard as she could. Then she spit on the ground, sorry she missed his boots. “That’s my answer.”

  From there, she went directly to Luther and told him her suspicions. “He might even have suggested a raid,” she said bitterly. “Luther, you know Jack and Lola are cheating!”

  “I happen to agree with you,” he admitted. “Did you actually hear Caldwell suggest anything to the Indian?”

  “No,” she conceded, her heart sinking.

  Luther spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Then all we have is more speculation. Caldwell may or may not have deliberately arranged for the loss of several cattle. And he may or may not have done so with Mrs. Roark’s knowledge.”

  “Several? Luther, Jack is directly responsible for the loss of well over a hundred steers! The number is approaching two hundred!”

  After examining her expression, he kicked a rock. “I’m supposed to be impartial, Freddy, but I’m not. I want to see you and Les and Alex win what I think is your rightful inheritance. If there was the slightest proof that Mrs. Roark and Caldwell are cheating as we all believe, I’d disqualify her this fast.” He snapped his fingers.

  “I know you would,” she admitted with a sigh. “Damn, cheaters aren’t supposed to win!”

  “They haven’t won yet,” he reminded her firmly.

  But the contest was over in Jack’s mind. By the time they passed through the Indian Territory and entered Kansas, Jack believed Lola would be a clear winner. He’d make sure of it.

  Before she headed for the remuda, she placed a hand on Luther’s sleeve. Like all of them, he had changed during the trip. “This is none of my business, but I’m going to say it anyway. You let Les get away once. Don’t do it again. She didn’t love Ward, and she’s not grieving his death.”

  His brow lifted and he stared. “Ward was… surely you must be wrong.”

  “I’m not. Ask her.”

  “I couldn’t inquire about something that personal, it’s none of my…” Biting off the words, he studied her face and a red tide spread from his ears to his throat. “I’m too old for Les. Too dull and set in my ways. She couldn’t possibly be…”

  Freddy rolled her eyes. Men were the most exasperating creatures in creation. “Why don’t you let Les decide? Maybe you’ll be happily surprised. I can tell you this. A faint heart never won a fair maiden.” As usual, she couldn’t recall the quotation exactly. “Things haven’t changed so much that Les is going to come courting you. You’ll have to make the first move.”

  Feeling his thoughtful stare on her back as she walked away, she found Dal and Grady and repeated her suspicions about Jack’s latest ploy.

  Grady threw his hat on the ground. “This ain’t right! Did you tell Luther?”

  “He can’t do anything without proof,” she said, speaking to Grady but watching Dal.

  She loved the bronzed hard look of him, the ice in his eyes when he swung to look toward the observers’ camp. She loved his rough brown hands and graceful wiry body. Loved the way his pants hung low on his hips, loved the purposeful way he moved. She loved his determination and the way he expected the best from the people around him. She loved everything about him.

  “When you look at me like that, I can’t think,” he said gruffly, after Grady stomped away.

  “You have changed my life,” she whispered, staring up at him, marveling at the truth of it.

  He had taken three pampered, self-absorbed butterflies and molded them into efficient, competent women. He had demanded they be the best they could be and refused to accept anything less. He’d shown them their abilities and courage, had stripped them to basic values that none of them had examined before this drive. Win or lose, when they rode into Abilene, she and her sisters would be stronger, more confident, and better equipped for life than they would have been without Dal Frisco.

  “I love you,” she said softly, drowning in his eyes.

  She had never dreamed that she would say those words standing beside two dozen smelly horses, sweating in the hot prairie sun. And she had imagined the man would say them first.

  He stared at her, his hands opening and closing at his sides, “Damn it, Frederick, you just wrecked my life.”

  “By telling you that I love you?” Stung, she blinked hard. “I’m not asking anything in return, if that’s what you’re worrying about. No promises, remember?” Embarrassed and angry, she started to back away, wishing to hell that she’d kept her impulsive mouth shut.

  “No promises? The hell there aren’t. Loving never comes without promises.” Gripping her arms, he leaned forward. “If you hadn’t said what you just said, I could have ridden away and told myself that you and me weren’t meant to be. Maybe I would have believed it someday. Now I’ve got to figure out how to mesh two incompatible dreams in a way that won’t make one or both of us miserable for the rest of our lives. And frankly, I’m not convinced that’s possible.”

  She returned his scowl. “You don’t have to figure out anything. Pardon me for wrecking your life and creating a problem. Just forget I said a word. Stupid me. I thought it might make you happy to know that I love you!”

  “You come sashaying over here and tell me the damned Indians are going to strip away our margin one beeve at a time, then right out of the blue you say, by the way I love you.” He glared into her blazing eyes. “Now that’s a hell of a thing. You couldn’t do this at a more appropriate time, could you? When I’m not worried half to damned death about the Indians and crossing the Washita, or when we could talk about this without the whole outfit watching.”

  Jerking away from his grip, she tossed her head and lifted her chin. “There’s nothing to talk about! I changed my mind. I’d have to be an idiot to love someone like you.”

  Blinking rapidly, she headed to the river and the willows strewn with her clothing, intending to cry in private. By the time she reached the swollen banks of the Washita, she’d reviewed every word of their conversation and reached a startling conclusion.

  Dal loved her, too.

  She gazed at the sparkling water foaming past the tips of her boots, then lifted her face to a hot sky as blue as his eyes. He hadn’t said it as clearly as she had, but he’d said it.

  But the way he had said it checked the joy that suddenly warmed her body.

  Sitting down on the red bank, she drew up her knees and watched the tossing water. Dal was right. A theater in San Francisco didn’t mesh with a ranch in Montana and never would. One of them would have to surrender his or her dream. If that happened… how long would it be before resentment began to chip away at love? Before regret and misery set in? A year? Two years?

  A tear dropped on her knee. The misery was already starting.

  As the days slipped past, Alex believed that John would begin to understand and accept that she would never wear the wooden leg. Each morning she awoke with her heart in her throat, wondering if today was the day she would discover he had slipped away during the night and was gone. When she found him after a frantic scan of the camp, she closed her eyes and thanked God for one more day with him.

  Sometimes discovering that he hadn’t left her filled her heart with so much emotion that she ached with pain. And sometimes she threw out her hands and laughed at the frustrating discovery that John was as stubborn as she was.

  But things had changed between them. By unspoken agreement, they had not sought to repeat their night of lovemaking, and John had borrowed a horse from the remuda. He no longer rode in the wagon with her.

  He still sat with her every evening, and they talked softly in the warm darkness, discussing the day’s events, filling in their history for each other. John’s thoughts had turned to the future, and occasionally he spoke of establishing a medical practice back East, of building a home, of reentering the w
orld.

  “How will you afford such things?” Alex asked, inhaling the scent of his cigar and a hint of the aloe paste he’d rubbed on Freddy’s sunburn. He never mentioned her in his plans for the future, and she was grateful for his consideration. But the omission also broke her heart and made her feel as if she were strangling.

  “My father was a prudent man. Long before others began to predict the South would end in ruin, my father had shifted his fortune to Northern banks and investments and advised me to do the same.” He stubbed out his cigar and took her hand. “Does it surprise you to learn that I’m wealthy?”

  Alex blinked hard at the lanterns glowing on the sides of the chuck wagon, then she dropped her head and lifted a hand to her forehead. She knew what he was telling her. Even if they failed to deliver two thousand cattle in Abilene, she would never have to worry about money again. If only. If only she could forget the husband she had killed and the debt she owed him. If only she could strap on a wooden leg and pretend that the carriage accident had never happened, pretend that she was blameless and deserving of a life with John. But she couldn’t.

  “Why won’t you ride in the chuck wagon with me?” she whispered. She missed him like she missed her leg, the loss an empty space inviting despair.

  He raised his knees and wrapped his arms around them, turning his face toward the drovers singing around the campfire. “I used to think about all the boys who died in my medical tent. I saw their faces in the clouds and reflected in the rivers, and I flogged myself that I hadn’t been able to save them. I remembered every bloody body, every failure. And when that pain became familiar, I thought about my father and my son and told myself I could have gotten them out of Atlanta if only I’d been smart enough not to get captured by the Union.”

  His grey eyes turned to her and softened. “And then one day, I met a beautiful courageous woman. Your touch was the first soft thing I’d experienced in years, my love. And you were the first person in years to look at me and see a man instead of an eccentric husk.” He took her trembling hand between both of his. “A man—or a woman—cannot change the past or live in it. Eventually the moment comes when it is time to put on one’s clothing and move toward the future.” She stared at him, knowing his definition of clothing was broad enough to include a wooden leg.

  “You helped me recognize that moment. I hoped I could do the same for you.”

  “Oh, John. Don’t you understand that meeting you has made me question everything in my life?” She’d never been as confused or as profoundly disturbed. Before John strode into her life, she had accepted her obligation to Payton and her punishment. Her decision never to walk again had not changed, but loving John made accepting her penance so hard.

  “I love you, Alex,” he said quietly, gazing into her eyes. “I want to spend my life with you. But I won’t share our life with Payton Mills. And this chair,” he touched the hard rubber rim of the wheel, “is your shrine to Payton and the suffering you think you owe him. The day you put the chair away, I’ll know you have chosen the future instead of the past.”

  “And if that day never comes?” she whispered.

  His eyes closed briefly, then he brought her hand to his lips. “I will spend the rest of my life seeing your face in the clouds and in the morning mist. I’ll hear your voice in the breeze, and I’ll grieve for what might have been.” He kissed her palm, then pressed it to his cheek.

  After he pushed her back to camp, they gazed at each other in silence, not needing words to express their pain. Alex understood that he was waiting for her to make a decision. But she had made that decision the night Payton died.

  Blinded by tears, she almost ran into Freddy as she rolled through the darkness toward her bedroll. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, dashing a hand across her eyes. “I didn’t see you.”

  Freddy stood in front of her, hands on her hips, a frown tugging her lips. “I can’t stand it another minute. Every person in this outfit helped make your new leg, and every one of us comes to breakfast every day expecting to see you standing there without your crutch. I can’t begin to count how many hours John worked on that leg. We all did. So why aren’t you wearing it?”

  “You know why.” She placed her hands on the wheels of the chair. “Please let me pass.”

  “You aren’t going to wear it?” Freddy’s eyebrows rose and she stared. “Is that why you and John are fighting?”

  “We aren’t fighting.” She should have known everyone in camp would notice that John no longer rode with her in the wagon, would feel the tension between them.

  “Alex, for God’s sake. John loves you, and you love him. Put on that leg, and—”

  “If you don’t step aside, so help me, Freddy, I’ll run over you. Tell everyone I appreciate what they tried to do, and I’m sorry their effort was wasted.” For a long moment she and Freddy stared at each other, then Freddy swore and walked away into the darkness.

  Alex sagged in her chair and closed her eyes, rubbing her ring finger. Her wedding ring was gone, but she still felt it squeezing her finger and her spirit like a manacle tethered to Payton Mills and the obligation she owed him.

  As Freddy had predicted, the Indians came every day. Frustrated and feeling helpless, Dal gave them a beeve, sometimes two, depending on the size of the begging party. It was never enough. They followed the herd, demanding tribute during daylight hours, coming like ghosts in the night to steal more cattle while the camp slept. He doubled the night watch, cut himself to two hours of sleep, and still the Indians slipped in and out, taking two or three steers every night.

  “I don’t know how they do it,” he said wearily, clamping his hands around his coffee cup. The embers of the fire cast rusty shadows across the sober faces of the drovers.

  “What’s our margin now?” Les asked anxiously, looking at him across the fire pit.

  “Thirty-one.” A hissing sound went around the fire as everyone sucked in a breath. He felt Freddy’s eyes on his face and looked up to meet her gaze. “Here’s the problem. If we don’t give the Indians a beeve when they come begging, they might attack and steal half the herd.”

  “They’re stealing us blind anyway,” Freddy said.

  The drovers nodded. “If the Indians attack, we’ll drive ’em off,” Peach stated firmly.

  Dal examined the faces around the campfire. “People get killed in Indian raids.”

  Caleb Webster laid a hand on the butt of his six-shooter. “So do Indians, boss. I say we take our chances. Maybe one of the Indians will put an arrow in that card fanner’s chest.”

  The animosity toward Caldwell had begun long before they’d reached the Indian Territory and had hardened during the last weeks. There wasn’t a man in the outfit who didn’t bitterly blame Jack Caldwell for shrinking the margin. Dal knew his men and he knew every one had rejected Caldwell’s offer of corruption and every one of them had come to admire the Roark sisters.

  “All right,” he said, standing up. “We’re agreed. We won’t give away any more longhorns. We can’t stop the night raids, and we’ll lose a few more before we get out of the territory. So let’s pick up the pace and get this herd to Kansas as fast as we can. We’ll ride sunup to sundown.” He waited until the men nodded before he left the campfire.

  A consisent twenty-mile-a-day pace would result in saddle-weary drovers and footsore longhorns and horses, but he had no real choice. Thirty-one. The number ran through his mind waking and asleep.

  He knew when Freddy came up behind him. Without a word, she slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his back. Her presence wasn’t enough to end his frustration, but he felt himself relax against her.

  “I thought you weren’t having anything to do with me,” he said gruffly. Her arms around him felt so damned good. He’d missed making love to her during the last two weeks, but more than that, he’d missed talking to her and just being with her.

  “I wrecked your life, remember?” she murmured against his spine.


  “Yeah, you have,” he said, covering her hands at his waist with his own.

  “So of course I’ve been ignoring you. Why should I want to be with a man whose life is wrecked?” She pressed her breasts against his back and adjusted her cheek on his shoulder.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t. When I haven’t been worrying about Indians, I’ve been worrying about you. We can’t work this out, Freddy. There’s nothing longterm here, and short-term isn’t honorable.” She snuggled closer to him, and her warmth made the stars seem brighter and the night better. Damn, he’d missed her.

  “One of your worst qualities is making decisions for other people,” she murmured. “I’ll decide what’s right for me. And I’ve decided to take what I want even if it is short-term.”

  He owed her better than that, but he couldn’t find a solution. A hundred times a day he thought about her saying she loved him, and it started a fire in his belly because he wanted a future with her, but he couldn’t see any way to have it. No matter what happened in Abilene, they were headed in opposite directions.

  Pulling her around in front of him, he told her his conclusions. “I took something I had no right to take, and I’ve gone on taking it because I couldn’t stop myself.” She was so beautiful in the starlight, she took his breath away. “Then you said what you said, and I had to take a look at what I was doing. I’ve done you wrong, Freddy. That’s why I’ve been keeping my distance.”

  She pushed his hands away and stepped up close to his body, resting her head on his chest. “Dal? Are you ever going to say the words?”

  The touch of her ignited his blood and incinerated his resolve to stay away from her. His arms came around her, and he buried his face in her hair. “Oh, hell. I love you,” he murmured hoarsely. “Damn it, Freddy, we have to stop this. A man doesn’t bed a woman when they both know he can’t do right by her.” He’d been over and over it in his mind. He’d never go to San Francisco. She’d never go to Montana.