Rivals

by Janet Dailey

  “Yes, I hear you.” The woman was mad. It was the only possible explanation that made any sense to Flame at all. Chance loved her and she loved him. That was the basis for their marriage—not all this nonsense about Morgan’s Walk. But why did she keep going on about it? What could she mean?

  “Don’t…don’t ever trust him. The Stuarts are a ruthless breed. They’ll do anything…even murder to get what…they want.” She was slipping deeper into the blackness of pain. She seemed to know it as she made one last valiant attempt to fight it off. “Ben will tell you. Ben and Charlie. They have the proof. They’ll show you. Won’t you? Ben? Charlie?” An edge of fear crept into her voice for the first time.

  “We’re here.” The old foreman quickly stepped to the bed, the brightness of tears in his eyes as he reached down to cradle her hand between his callused palms. “Ben and me, we’ll explain everything just like you would have done.”

  “The pain, Charlie.” There was a hint of a sob in her voice. “I don’t think I can take it anymore.”

  “You don’t have to, Miss Hattie.” With a turn of his head, he looked over his shoulder at the attorney standing well back from the bed. In a voice husky and thick, he said, “Take Miss Margaret Rose down to the library, Ben, and have Doc Gibbs come back in.”

  “Of course.” Stepping forward, the diminutive attorney lightly touched her arm. Frozen inside with a mixture of grief, disbelief, and confusion, Flame let herself be led from the room.

  20

  The library occupied a secluded corner of the mansion’s first floor, its tall, small-paned windows looking out onto the tree-shaded rear lawn. Rich paneling of black oak lined three sides of the room, while bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling on the fourth. A pair of wing-backed chairs, covered in burgundy leather and studded with brass, flanked the imported marble fireplace, the pair of them mates to the chesterfield sofa that faced them.

  Alone in the room, Flame wandered over to the large mahogany desk that took up one whole corner. Yet she couldn’t escape the sensation that there were eyes following her. She pivoted sharply and faced the portrait that hung above the mantel. There he was, glaring at her in silent accusation. No matter where she went in the room, it was the same.

  She stared at the man in the painting. Over the years, an accumulation of smoke and grime had dulled its colors, but it hadn’t lessened the impact of that strong-jawed face or those piercing black eyes. And the hair visible beneath the wide brim of his western hat had a definite red cast to it, although Flame wasn’t ready to concede that originally it might have been the same fiery gold color as hers.

  “Hattie frequently stared at the portrait like that, too.” The remark came from the library’s arched entrance with its set of sliding pocket doors. Flame swung toward them, startled to see the attorney in the opening, his short arms laden with a large tray holding a silver coffee service and china cups. “Imposing, isn’t it?” He walked into the room, the thick rubber soles of his oxfords making little sound on the hardwood floor.

  “I assume that’s Kell Morgan.” Her teeth, her nerves, and her temper were all on edge.

  “Hattie told you about him?” He sent her a questioning look as he awkwardly set the tray down on the occasional table next to the wing chair, rattling the china cups against each other in the process.

  Again Flame observed the innate shrewdness of his eyes and reminded herself that this little man was not as jolly or as harmless as he appeared. “She mentioned that her grandfather’s portrait hung above the fireplace in the library.”

  “Yes, of course.” He wrapped a pudgy hand around the silver handle of the coffee service and picked it up. “I know you said you didn’t use it, but I brought some cream anyway. Charlie made the coffee earlier, and—around here—cowboys like their coffee black and thick. So you might want to dilute yours with a little cream.”

  But Flame wasn’t interested in talking about coffee or cream. She wanted answers to those ridiculous charges Hattie had made. “What was all that nonsense Hattie was saying about Chance?”

  Ben Canon hesitated a fraction of a second, then finished filling one of the cups with coffee. “I’m afraid it wasn’t nonsense.”

  “You’re wrong.” He had to be. “In the first place, Chance would never have expected to inherit Morgan’s Walk, even if he knew about the place. She must have been delirious when she said that. She told me that it had to pass to a direct descendant.”

  “Your husband is Hattie’s nephew.”

  “But—how can that be?” She’d always understood that Chance had no family—none at all.

  “His mother was Hattie’s baby sister.” The lawyer glanced at her, a knowing gleam lighting his eyes. “Obviously he didn’t tell you that.”

  “No.” Why? Why hadn’t he told her? Why had he kept it a secret? Had he done it deliberately? Or, like her, had he simply not gotten around to mentioning Hattie?

  “I’m afraid there are a great many other things that he has failed to tell you as well.”

  “That’s what you say,” she charged. “But I don’t believe you. I don’t believe any of this. Where’s all this supposed proof Hattie was talking about? Show it to me—if you can.”

  He held her gaze for a long, considering second, then shook his head. “I prefer to wait until Charlie joins us.”

  “Why? What difference does it make whether he’s here or not? Or is he your proof?” Flame challenged, armed by the memory of Chance saying, “No matter what anyone tells you, remember that I love you.” “You surely don’t expect me to accept his word for this, because I won’t.”

  As if on cue, she heard the clump of booted footsteps in the hall outside the library. Flame glanced at the doorway as Charlie Rainwater appeared. Grief bowed his shoulders and shadowed the faded blue of his eyes.

  “Hattie?” That was all Ben Canon said, just her name, but that one word was loaded with question. Flame unconsciously held her breath, bracing herself for the old foreman’s answer. However much as she might resent Hattie’s unfounded accusations against Chance, she couldn’t pretend, not even to herself, that she wouldn’t be touched by the old woman’s passing.

  The droop of his mustache lifted slightly as Charlie Rainwater made an attempt to gather himself. “She’s resting for now,” he said. “The doc’s gonna sit with her.”

  The attorney nodded, but made no comment as he turned to the serving tray on the table. “I brought in some of that coffee you made, Charlie. Would you like me to pour a cup? I seem to have been elected by default to do the honors.”

  “I sure would,” he accepted readily, his long legs carrying him into the room, the thud of his heeled boots echoing hollowly in the high-ceilinged room and increasing the feeling Flame had that they had gathered here to keep a lonely deathwatch.

  “Would you like to change your mind, Margaret Rose, and have a cup with us?” the attorney offered again, the spout of the coffee server poised above the third cup.

  “No. And please stop using that name. My mother’s the only one who ever called me that.” Her mother—and Hattie.

  “That’s right. You’re known as Flame, aren’t you?” Ben Canon recalled, his sharp eyes sliding to the red of her hair. “A most descriptive sobriquet.”

  “I’m really not interested in your opinion, Mr. Canon—only in the explanation you promised to give me once Mr. Rainwater joined us.”

  “Yes, so I did.” He took a sip of his coffee, and peered up at the considerably taller foreman. “It seems her husband failed to mention that he was Hattie’s nephew.”

  “He is. That’s true enough, ma’am.” Charlie Rainwater took a hurried and noisy slurp of coffee, then wiped at the clipped ends of his mustache with the back of his forefinger. “He was born right here in this house—in the room right next to Miss Hattie’s. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Doc Gibbs. He was the one who brought him into this world.” Pausing, he stared into the black of his coffee. “A sad day it was, too. I don’t reck
on any of us expected to see the day come when there’d be a Stuart in this house.”

  “But his father—”

  Charlie never gave her a chance to finish as he looked up, a cold fire blazing in his eyes. “Ring Stuart was a lazy, no-good hoodlum. He didn’t give a hoot about Miss Elizabeth. He just wanted the easy life Morgan’s Walk could give him. Miss Hattie tried to tell her that, but Miss Elizabeth wouldn’t listen. Her eyes were so full of him, she couldn’t see anything else.” He gave a wry shake of his head, but there was little humor in the slant of his mouth. “That really ain’t so surprising, I guess. Them Stuarts always did have more charm in their little fingers than most men got in their whole body. So what does Miss Elizabeth do, but run off and marry him. With her being of legal age, there wasn’t much Miss Hattie could do about it. She tried. We all tried. But once Miss Elizabeth married him, Miss Hattie had no choice but to turn her out. That hurt her. That hurt her bad. She loved that girl. Raised her from the time she was born, and she was just a kid herself.”

  “But how could Chance have been born here if Hattie threw his mother out?”

  “’Cause she took her back. Miss Elizabeth got real sick and there he was not taking care of her like he should. Miss Hattie couldn’t stand that, and Stuart knew it. I warned her that she was playin’ right into his hands when she brought them both back to Morgan’s Walk, but she said it was better to have the devil close so she could keep an eye on him and know what he was up to. We all knew what he figured. With Miss Hattie being so much older than Miss Elizabeth, he thought she would die first and his wife would get Morgan’s Walk—and he’d have control of it. But it didn’t work that way. Miss Elizabeth got blood cancer. Many’s the time you could see it workin’ in his mind to hurry Miss Hattie’s demise along, but he couldn’t twitch a hair without somebody seein’ it. That’s when he started drinking—out of frustration mostly.” He cupped both leathered hands around the delicate china cup. “I reckon he had reason to be frustrated, ’cause he sure didn’t get Morgan’s Walk like he wanted—like he tried to do.”

  “Let me see if I understand this,” Flame murmured tightly. “Simply because his father married to get control of this ranch, you have tarred Chance with the same brush. Is that your proof?”

  “There’s more to it than that…Flame,” Ben Canon inserted, hesitating fractionally over the use of her name. “Much more. As a matter of fact, the trouble with the Stuarts goes all the way back to his day.” He half-turned to look at the man in the portrait.

  “I suppose this has something to do with the deathbed promise Hattie referred to.” She caught a jeering note of sarcasm in her voice. Part of her regretted it, yet mockery seemed her only defense at the moment. She couldn’t allow herself to take any of this seriously.

  “I think it would be closer to say that this addresses the events that led up to it.” His smile failed to conceal the hard scrutiny of his glance. “Perhaps it would be best if I began by telling you a bit about the founding of this ranch, and the history of this area. After all, Morgan’s Walk will pass to you on Hattie’s death. It’s only fitting that you should know something about it—out of respect for Hattie, if nothing else.”

  At the mention of the woman’s name, she felt a twinge of guilt, realizing how callous she must sound to him. She wasn’t. There were simply too many emotions pulling her in different directions—anger, confusion, pity, sadness, and—however much she was unwilling to admit it—fear. Fear that Hattie might be right—that maybe she was being used by Chance. Because of it, the urge was strong to flee the room and this house so she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of their lies about him. But she stayed. Like it or not, she had to know.

  “You’re quite right, Mr. Canon,” Flame stated, tilting her chin a little higher. “If Morgan’s Walk is to be mine, I should know more about it.”

  “Good.” He nodded in approval.

  Without thinking, she glanced at the portrait and froze, an eerie chill running down her spine. Those eyes—the eyes of the man in the portrait—they’d lost their accusing glare and now regarded her with a pleased look. Flame tried to tell herself that she was imagining it, that her mind was playing tricks with her, yet the impression persisted.

  Shaken by it, Flame walked over to the coffee tray. “I think I’ll have a cup after all.”

  “Help yourself, by all means.” The lawyer waved a hand in the direction of the silver pot as he crossed to the fireplace.

  The coffee was every bit as black as he’d warned her it was, but she didn’t dilute it with cream, for the moment preferring the strong brew. With cup in hand, she sat down in the nearest wing chair. Following her lead, Charlie Rainwater settled his wiry frame into its mate, both of them angled to face the diminutive attorney. He stood to one side of the blackened hearth, the top of his head barely reaching the marble lip of the tall mantel. She fixed her gaze on him, refusing to let it stray to the portrait that dominated the room and, currently, her thoughts.

  “As you know from the documents I forwarded to you on Hattie’s behalf,” the attorney began, “Kell Morgan—christened Kelly Alexander Morgan—was born in eighteen sixty on a small farm—although a southerner would call it a plantation—outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. When the Civil War broke out, his father, Braxton Morgan, joined the Confederate Army and sent his wife and young son off to New Orleans to stay with his sister and her family. When that city fell into Union hands, she took her son and fled to an uncle’s farm near Dallas, Texas. Approximately six months after the war ended, Braxton Morgan rejoined them…minus an arm and with a crippled leg. Needless to say, circumstances forced them to continue living with his wife’s family. A year later, your great-grandfather, Christopher John Morgan, was born.”

  “That was eighteen sixty-six,” Flame said, recalling the year that had appeared on the baptismal record.

  “Yes.” He moved away from the fireplace, his short legs setting an ambling pace as he wandered toward the bookshelves that lined one full wall of the library. “Much has been written about the Reconstruction years in the South, so it should suffice to say that they were rough times for children like your great-grandfather and his brother to be growing up. I don’t know if you read between the lines in that obituary notice I sent you from a Dallas newspaper regarding the death of Braxton Morgan, but it seems he was killed during a drunken brawl—no doubt still defending the honor of the South. That was eighteen sixty-nine. Two years later, his wife died, probably from exhaustion and overwork. To her uncle’s credit, he kept both boys and raised them. Then, in eighteen seventy-five, Kell Morgan struck out on his own at the tender age of fifteen—although I suppose we should keep in mind that in those days that made him nearly a grown man.”

  When he returned to gaze at the portrait, Flame’s glance was drawn to it as well. She searched but couldn’t find that stern and forbidding quality she’d first seen in his expression. Looking at the man in the painting now, she could see only the pride and strength of an indomitable will stamped in his hard, angular features…that and those dark eyes boring into her as if trying to press their will on her.

  “He signed on as a drover to take a herd of longhorns north to the railhead at Wichita, Kansas,” Ben Canon went on. “That was back in the heyday of the great cattle drives north. Which isn’t to say that Texas cattle hadn’t been driven to northern markets before then. They had—as far back as the eighteen fifties. Most of them were brought up the Shawnee Trail, called the Texas Road by some. It cut right through the eastern half of the state and stretched from Texas all the way to St. Louis. And a wide road it was, too. It had to be, to accommodate the military supply caravans, freight wagons, and the settlers’ schooners that traveled over it.

  “But it was the Chisolm Trail Kell Morgan went up that spring. It wasn’t until late fall when he was heading home that he saw this part of the country for the first time.” Canon stared at the portrait, absently studying the man in the painting. “I’ve often wondered what
he thought when he topped that ridge of hills and saw this valley before him—lush with the autumn gold of its tall grass and bright with the silver shimmer of the narrow river running through it. With only three years of schooling he could barely read or write, so his impressions were never committed to paper. But he told Hattie the sight of the valley was an image that lived in his mind from that day on.”

  Charlie Rainwater spoke up, nodding his head at the portrait. “According to Miss Hattie, that painting didn’t do him justice—not like seeing him in the flesh. He stood six foot one in his stockinged feet—and she claimed he had a pair of shoulders that were just about that wide. She said that every time she saw him he reminded her of a double tree standin’ on an upright shaft. And nobody ever called him Red—at least, not twice. No, he was always known as Kell Morgan.” His glance darted briefly to Flame. “I never had the privilege of meeting him, you understand. He passed away long before I ever came to work here. But everybody I ever talked to said he was a hard man, but a fair one. As long as you were loyal to the brand, he’d stick by you right or wrong. Miss Hattie said he never smiled much—that he did all his talkin’ with his eyes. When he was mad, they’d be as black as hell, but when he was happy, they’d glow…like they was lit from inside. And he loved this land, too. He was out riding it and checkin’ cattle right up to the day he died. Sixty-five, he was.”