Letter to a Lonesome Cowboy

by Jackie Merritt

  “Meaning you don’t.”

  In spite of her good intentions, her voice rose. “Meaning I’m getting more confused by the minute with you, Rand!”

  “And you’re blaming me? What in hell have I done to confuse you?”

  The anger in the air rocked them both, and they fell silent and looked uncomfortable and a little sheepish.

  Rand moved first, taking a few directionless steps around the room. “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding almost helpless. “It’s just that…” Heaving a sigh, he let his voice trail off and looked at her. “What were you saying about a problem?”

  It took a moment for her to recall what she’d said before that flash-fire explosion between them. At least he had apologized, and could she do any less?

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said with genuine chagrin. “You don’t…you couldn’t possibly…understand where I’m coming from.”

  “Granted,” Rand said dryly. “But I’m willing to listen.” He cocked a hopeful eyebrow. “Am I your problem, Suzanne?”

  “I…you weren’t.” She walked to the window to draw back the drape and glance outside. “Maybe you are now,” she said with a sigh, and dropped the drape to turn and face him. “But when I said I had a problem I was referring to Mack.”

  “Mack,” Rand echoed, disappointment knotting his gut. It hurt that Suzanne could make such uninhibited love with him and then write it off so casually. And yet she’d admitted he might be a problem now, too. Damn, was there ever a man alive who truly understood women?

  “What about Mack?” he asked gruffly. He already knew the boy was a worry for Suzanne, but she didn’t appear to be thinking in generalities at the moment.

  “Do you have time for this?”

  “A few more minutes won’t matter.”

  Suzanne was biting her lower lip and frowning. “Thank you. I need to talk to someone about this. I—I’m afraid Mack won’t go home with me.”

  Rand winced over her reference to going home—today really hadn’t meant anything to her—but he stuck to the subject. “You’re his guardian. He has to do what you say.”

  “He rarely does,” Suzanne said, sounding weary of the family battle. “Rand, if he digs in his heels and refuses—he’s already told me he isn’t going back to school—what can I do about it? He’s not a child I can pick up and carry to the car.”

  “Are you asking me to put him in the car for you?”

  She shook her head almost impatiently. “That’s not the answer. You said yourself that force wouldn’t work with Mack. I guess I was hoping you had an alternative suggestion.”

  Rand sat his hips on the edge of the dresser. “I could kick him off the ranch. He’d have no choice but to go with you.”

  “Rand, if he doesn’t go willingly, he won’t stay. He has this…this romanticized idea of a cowboy’s life stuck in his head—and maybe his heart—and I can’t think of anything in Baltimore to take its place.”

  “There isn’t anything to take its place,” Rand said flatly. “Cowboying isn’t just a job, Suzanne, it’s a way of life. If you get bitten by that particular bug, you rarely get over it. I’ll tell you something else, too. Mack’s seen ranching at its worst since he got here, and if this storm and working his tail off in frigid weather and deep snow didn’t turn him off, nothing will.”

  Suzanne’s expression grew grim as Rand talked. “That’s not exactly what I had hoped to hear from you.”

  “I’m sure it’s not, but did you want a pretty story or the truth?”

  After a second she said with a discouraged sigh, “The truth.”

  He was thinking of how much he didn’t want her leaving the second the weather turned and the roads were passable. “Suzanne, I think you need to give Mack a little more time out here. He’s doing the work of a man. Maybe he’ll start thinking and behaving like one.”

  “I don’t have any time to give him! I told you about my job situation.”

  “My point, exactly. Look, if the weather turned sunny and the plows cleared the roads tomorrow morning, I’d still be without a cook and bookkeeper. We know George is going to be laid up for a while, and I have no idea when Handy will be back. Depends on his sister’s health, I’m sure. Anyhow, what I’m getting at is, why don’t you think about staying on and working here until things return to normal? Could be a couple of weeks, and by then who knows? Maybe Mack will have his fill of working from dawn to dusk.”

  “And I should just forget about his education?”

  “Absolutely not. The day the school bus passes by the Kincaid driveway, Mack will be out there waiting for it. I guarantee it.”

  “Then how would he be working from dawn to dusk?”

  Rand grinned. “By putting in several hours after school every day and working weekends. That’s the way a lot of ranch kids live, Suzanne. I know, because it’s how I grew up.”

  “And you think that routine might disenchant him,” Suzanne murmured, as much to herself as to Rand.

  “It’s a possibility.” Rand didn’t believe anything of the kind. Mack was champing at the bit to learn to ride a horse, which, so far, no one had had the time to teach him. Once the weather broke, duties and chores would lessen, and most any of the hands would get a kick out of showing Mack the ropes, undoubtedly teasing him unmercifully in the process. But that, too, was part of this life-style—male camaraderie, good-natured ribbing, a sense of fraternity. Mack, Rand suspected, would eat it up.

  But Rand knew he would say almost anything to keep Suzanne from bolting at the first sign of a snowplow. As much as he despised lies and liars, he was willing to bend his principles to keep Suzanne around for a while longer. She’d proved their mutual attraction today in the most elemental way possible, and he wasn’t going to simply stand by and do nothing while she made plans to leave.

  He saw her take a very long, very deep breath. “You feel certain that you can get him to go back to school?” she asked.

  “If he wants to work on this ranch, believe me, he’ll go to school,” Rand replied. After a moment he asked, “So, what do you say? Have we got a deal?”

  Returning to Baltimore practically penniless versus returning with some money really was no contest. Maybe the wisdom of putting Mack into a new school for such a short time was debatable, but at least he would be attending some school, which was vastly superior to what he was doing now.

  As for Rand and herself, surely she could keep her emotions in better control than she had today.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll work here until your people get back and can resume their jobs.”

  A frisson of excitement danced up Rand’s spine, but he merely nodded and pushed himself away from the dresser. “Great, and don’t forget, you’ll be doing two jobs and paid accordingly.”

  Suzanne’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “Darned right.” She looked so pretty he could hardly stop himself from going to her and making another pass. He knew too much about her now to think of her as just another woman. It was as though he could see through her clothes, and he knew that whenever he looked at her from this moment on he would remember her naked, flushed with passion and in his arms.

  He was suddenly overheated and edgy. “Well, guess I’d better get back to the men. They’re probably wondering what I’ve been doing for so long.”

  Suzanne’s cheeks got pink. “You…you won’t tell them, will you? About us, I mean.”

  “No way. What happened between us is strictly off-limits to anyone else.”

  She swallowed her nervousness regarding that topic. “Thank you.”

  Rand walked to the door, paused to send her a heartfelt smile and then left. With knees that had suddenly gotten weaker, Suzanne sank to the edge of the bed. If just a man’s smile could make her knees go weak, wasn’t she playing a rather dangerous game of chance with her heart?

  But did she have a choice? Why, she might earn a thousand dollars or more before Handy and George got back.

  And wouldn’t i
t be wonderful if Rand was right about Mack becoming disenchanted with ranch life after a few grueling weeks of hard work?

  It was a risk worth taking, Suzanne decided. Her first priority right now was money, her second was Mack. At this crucial time of her life, any feelings she might have about anything, especially a man, came in at a very feeble third. All she could do was vow to survive Rand Harding’s almost fatal charm and leave it at that.

  Again, what choice did she have?

  Rand noticed that J.D. now had two admirers, Dale Carson and Mack. Working together that afternoon, he also noticed that Mack didn’t seem to mind that Dale was also dogging J.D.’s footsteps, but Dale was getting surly about Mack’s presence.

  “What ‘cha doing here, anyhow, kid?” Dale threw at the boy in a nasty, snide voice. “You should still be at home sucking the hind teat.”

  Mack got red in the face, but he stood his ground. “You got a problem, Carson?”

  “Oh, tough guy, huh? Well, why don’t you show me what you’re really made of, Paxton.”

  Rand interrupted. “Hold on there, you two. Dale, get back to work. Mack, come over here.”

  Mack waded through the snow to Rand. “He started it, Rand.”

  “And what were you planning to do, finish it? Listen, Mack, Dale might not be very tall, but he’s strong as an ox.”

  “I ain’t afraid of him,” Mack said, wiping his runny nose on the sleeve of his jacket.

  Rand just looked at him. Mack was a boy trying to be a man, no doubt wishing with all his heart that he was older than his age. Rand could remember himself at fourteen, and also the confusion of feeling like a kid one minute and a grown-up the next.

  But the similarity stopped there. When Rand was fourteen his parents had still been alive. He’d had roots and stability, and while his folks hadn’t been particularly affectionate people, he’d known they were there for him. Mack had Suzanne, and damned lucky he was to have her, too, but he didn’t realize that yet. Someday he would, but reason and good sense sometimes came too late to save unnecessary pain.

  Yes, Rand thought with a sigh, Suzanne would go on beating her brains out trying to get her kid brother on the right track, and Mack would keep on being a pain in the neck— possibly worse—until time made it all obsolete. Neither of them should have to go through it.

  “Your being unafraid is immaterial, Mack,” Rand said. “If you tied into Dale, he’d beat you black and blue. That’s a fact, and I don’t believe you’re stupid enough to ignore facts.” Rand studied the boy’s face. “Are you?”

  “No, but I ain’t backing down like no yellow coward, either.”

  Mack’s fractured English made Rand wince. If anyone needed schooling, it was this boy. Not that perfect grammar was the norm among cowpokes, but they were grown men and their school years were behind them. Mack’s education was still ahead of him, and Rand vowed on the spot that if he had anything to say about it, Mack Paxton was going to school. At least while he was in Montana, he was.

  “Mack, if you’re going to work with men like these, you’re going to have to learn when to fight and when to laugh. Do you get my meaning?”

  “You think I should have laughed when Dale said I should be home sucking on the hind teat?”

  “I think you should have recognized that he was deliberately goading you, and yes, I think you should have laughed. It would have diffused the whole thing and it would have been over with. Mack, you’re young, the only kid on the block, so to speak, and you’re going to get a lot of ribbing from the crew. It goes with the territory. Tease them back, make them laugh. That’s what they’re looking for.”

  “Dale wasn’t. I been in enough fights to know when a guy wants to punch your lights out.”

  Rand agreed, although it wasn’t a concession he could give Mack. Dale was a tough little nut, and Rand didn’t want to see Mack with a broken nose, or worse. “I can tell I’m not really getting through to you,” Rand said. “Let me put it another way. If you want to work on this ranch, you’ll hold your temper. If I hear of you getting into a fistfight with any of the men, you’re through. Now, is that clear enough?”

  Mack looked startled, then excited. “You’re gonna hire me! I knew it! I told Suzanne you would. I told her!”

  “Only for as long as the two of you stay in Montana,” Rand warned. For the merest fraction of time he thought of enlisting Mack’s aid to help him keep Suzanne in Montana. But it was such deceitful business, pitting brother against sister, and he couldn’t do it. Drawing a breath, he went on with what he could say. “And there’s more. You’ll go to school in Whitehorn. You’ll start the first day the buses run again.”

  Mack’s mouth hung open. “But…but…”

  “No buts, Mack. School and a job on the ranch or neither. It’s your decision.”

  Mack was visibly shaken. He looked off across the snow-covered fields while Rand looked at him. A soft spot for this lost and wayward youth developed in Rand’s chest, making him speak more gently.

  “Me or one of the other men will teach you to ride and anything else you want to learn about ranching, Mack.”

  “I hate school,” Mack mumbled, clearly on the verge of tears. “Why can’t I just work?”

  Rand deliberately inserted a hard note in his voice again. He was not going to argue with Mack about this. “Take it or leave it, Mack,” he said as he walked away to rejoin his crew of men.

  A short time later J.D. said to Rand, speaking quietly, “The boy’s going through a bad time, isn’t he?”

  Mack was back to work and still looked as though tears were imminent. “He’ll make it,” Rand said. It was all he could say without bringing Suzanne’s name into the conversation, which he would not do with J.D. or anyone else.

  Still, while pitching hay from the sled, he kept a close eye on Mack. He felt something important, a bonding with that sad-faced young man, and he passionately hoped he would have the chance to help him.

  It could only happen if the Paxtons stayed in Montana, of course. Rand leaned on his pitchfork for a minute, his expression deeply introspective. If he could somehow convince Suzanne to stay—to marry him—wouldn’t all three of them be better off than they were now? Mack certainly would be, he would be…and Suzanne? Well, she would never have to worry about finding a job again, and how could that be a detriment?

  Yes, she would definitely be better off as far as having to support herself and Mack went. He should be able to convince her of that much, at least. He decided then and there that he was going to give it his best shot. After all, what did he have to lose?

  Supper was roast pork, sage dressing and a half-dozen side dishes. Suzanne was getting the hang of cooking large meals and was especially proud of tonight’s menu. She still ate alone in the kitchen, and could hear the men talking and laughing. It was no longer snowing, there was a definite rise in temperature and everyone was elated about it.

  She was surprised when Mack came in carrying his plate and glass of milk. “Uh, is it okay if I sit with you tonight?” he asked.

  “Of course it’s okay. Pull up a stool.” My Lord, she thought, was Rand’s theory working already? Was Mack any less thrilled with ranching than he’d been? Why else would he leave the men and eat with her?

  He ate for a few minutes, shoveling it in and saying nothing, and Suzanne let the silence stretch, knowing that if he had something to tell her, he would get to it in his own good time.

  Finally he mumbled, “Good supper, sis. Really good.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. I’m glad you like it.”

  He took a swallow of milk. “Uh, Rand hired me today.”

  Suzanne’s stomach sank, and she laid her fork on her plate. This wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping to hear. “Oh?”

  “It’s part-time, though. He said I have to go to school if I want to work for him.”

  Suzanne quietly cleared her throat. “And how do you feel about that?”

  Mack was looking down at his plate. “I don
’t know why he wants me to go to school. I was sort of hoping you’d talk to him about it.”

  “Let me get this straight. You want me to tell Rand you don’t need to finish your education? Mack, you know how I feel about your quitting school. How could you ask me to do something that is in direct opposition to my own standards?”

  Mack cast her a sullen look. “You won’t do it, then?”

  “No, I will not.”

  Mack slumped back on the stool. “I hate being a kid.”

  Rand walked in and heard him. “Sounds to me like you hate quite a few things, Mack. Besides school and your age, what else do you hate?”

  Just the sight of Rand had Suzanne’s pulse racing. Was this going to be her reaction every time they ran into each other? she thought in horror. Why, oh, why had she made love with him today? she asked herself with a silent groan. She was going to pay for that error in judgment for as long as she was in Montana, make no mistake.

  Mack’s face was red. “I got a right to hate school,” he muttered.

  “And you have a right to hate your age, but does it do you or anyone else any good?” Rand asked him. “It’s certainly not going to make you older overnight.”

  “Didn’t say it would.” Mack slid off the stool. “I’m going upstairs.”

  Rand watched him go, then shook his head. “That is one unhappy boy, Suz.”

  His shortening her name, as he’d done in her bed today, ignited a fire in the pit of Suzanne’s stomach. “I know,” she said in the quietest possible tone.

  “I thought he liked me. He did when he first came,” Rand said thoughtfully.

  “He probably still does. What he doesn’t like is being told what to do.”

  “But we’re all told what to do, in one way or another.”

  “So speaketh a mature man,” Suzanne murmured. “He said you hired him today, with the condition that he attend school.”

  “I did.” Rand moved closer and leaned his elbows on the counter, thereby putting his face only inches from hers. “Suz, will you marry me?”