“Help her.”
“Damnit, Grant, I never knew you for one to stick your nose in other folks’ affairs.”
“Me? You don’t know half about meddlin’ till you see your sister at work. Help her, Morley. That’s the only way to get her out of your hair.”
“I have a better idea. You brought her out here; you take her back to town. See her off on the train.”
“Morley.” Madolyn’s voice startled the two bickering men.
Tyler turned to see her standing in the barn door, valise in hand. Morley’s face took on the hue of the sky at sunset.
“You’re not running me off, Morley. I’m staying right here until you sign those papers.”
“Like hell!”
“Mr. Grant, you promised to retrieve my baggage after I had a chance to look things over.”
Morley exploded. “You what?”
“You’ll be more comfortable in town, Maddie,” Tyler advised.
“I’ll be more comfortable right here with my family.”
Morley turned wild eyes on Tyler. “This is your doin’, so you fix it. Take her to town an’ send her back to Boston. An’ stay the hell away from here, yourself. If those boys won’t shoot you next time, I’ll hire men who will.”
Tyler cocked his head, studied his combative partner—former partner. He lowered his voice. “Tell you what, Morley. I might be willin’ to work out a trade. Sign Maddie’s papers, and, in exchange for that little filly in the pen yonder, I’ll get this one out of your hair.”
Five
“You used me, Mr. Grant!” Madolyn gripped the wagon seat with both hands. Her parasol lay in the back along with her valise, where Tyler pitched them, just before he grabbed her around the waist and tossed her to the wooden seat, as though she were a sack of feed. Following which, he whipped up the team and drove away from Morley’s in his usual bat-out-of-hell manner.
“I brought you out here, didn’t I?”
“For your own gain.”
“What gain’s that, Maddie?”
“I don’t know. One would think from the way he acted, Morley was angrier to see you than he was to see me.”
“That’s possible.”
“You claimed to be his partner.”
“I am.” When Tyler flicked the reins, his shoulder bumped Madolyn. “Was.”
She scooted away. “I knew it. You didn’t tell me the truth, Mr. Grant.”
“Maddie. Maddie.”
At his conciliatory tone, she grew wary. Even so, his next suggestion surprised her.
“Why don’t you drop that Mr. Grant nonsense?”
“It isn’t your name?”
“Of course, it’s my name, but—”
“Then I shan’t drop it.”
“You might as well call me Tyler, that’s my name, too.”
“I know your name, Mr. Grant. But I shan’t drop the formality. Who knows, one of these days my good manners might rub off on you.” She focused on a magenta blossom in the distance, the only bright spot in sight—either in the country or in her life. “Or on someone.”
“If you’re talkin’ about Morley, don’t hold your breath.”
“Morley was reared to be a gentleman, Mr. Grant. My mother—”
“This has nothing to do with your mother, Maddie. Morley’s behavior is no reflection on his fine, upstandin’ family.”
Madolyn’s stiff spine relaxed a bit. Perhaps Tyler didn’t know as much about her as she had feared, not if he called her family fine and upstanding. Obviously, Morley hadn’t revealed all the family secrets to this friend of twenty years. If she could believe Tyler on that, either.
“It’s the country,” Tyler was saying.
“The country?”
“This country’s hard on a man. Harder, yet on a woman. Every livin’ thing either has thorns that stick you or poison that kills you. Summertime, it’s hot as Hades; winter, you’d swear you were at the North Pole. There’s never enough water, not until a flash flood hits the mountains, then the run-off strips the land of what little topsoil there was. It’s a hard country, Maddie. Too hard for a man to give much thought to manners and the like.”
“Then why are you here?”
Tyler shifted the reins to his outside hand and propped his other hand on his knee. Madolyn studied it, fascinated. A tingling sensation reminded her how that hand had felt at the small of her back, sturdy, secure. She had never seen a hand so large, or one that looked so strong. His fingernails were clipped and clean, but his fingers were scarred, the skin so dry tiny little cracks ran around the edges of them like miniature trails in the sand. Proof that work strengthened a person, she decided. When Tyler didn’t respond, she repeated her question.
He grinned. “Speakin’ of manners, in this part of the country, it’s considered downright rude to make personal inquiries.”
She gasped.
“But considerin’ all we’ve been through together, if you’ll agree to call me by name, I’ll consider tellin’ you all about my sordid past.”
She fidgeted self-consciously on the seat, but he only grinned. He was teasing. He must be teasing. But she couldn’t be certain; she had little experience with jovial people. She declined the offer by glancing off.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Grant, I feel obliged to help Morley’s family while he comes to terms with helping me.”
Tyler frowned at her from beneath his deep-set eyes. “What kind of help?”
“To begin with, the children need shoes.”
“Boots.”
“Boots, then. I won’t quibble over footgear.”
“Hallelujah!” His warm brown gaze zoomed in on her. “We’ve found our first area of common ground, Maddie. There’s hope for us yet.”
Taken aback, she sat up a bit straighter, dodging contact with his shoulder. “I wasn’t aware we were searching for common ground.”
He laughed, that deep-throated, straight-from-the-belly laugh. Contagious, that’s what it was, and she couldn’t help but smile, hearing it. People should laugh. No matter what Miss Abigail said about frivolity being a woman’s downfall—third behind promiscuity and sloth—Madolyn had long suspected that laughter was good for the soul. She had never been able to let herself go to that extent, but, hearing Tyler, she longed to.
“Boots,” he prompted. “What other kind of help are you offerin’ Morley?”
“They need so many things, I don’t know where to begin—material things like furniture and clothing and even a larger house.”
“A house?”
She ignored his skeptical tone. “And things for the soul and the mind, like education and—” Her train of thought ran out when she realized she had been about to discuss Morley’s personal life. “Of course, that works in my favor.”
“Your favor? How’s that?”
“Morley will have to file suit to break Papa’s will. He needs the money.”
“You mean because of the way they live?”
“The things they lack,” she amended.
“Morley Sinclair doesn’t need that money, Maddie. Not one half as bad as you need it yourself.”
Madolyn sat a little straighter. She had never discussed personal matters with a stranger. Of course, Tyler had taken it upon himself to become more than a stranger, no matter that he and her brother were scarcely on speaking terms.
“If he has money, he certainly doesn’t spend it.”
“Trust me, Maddie. Ol’ Morley spends plenty. He just laid down five hundred dollars for that thoroughbred horse.”
“’Pache Prancer?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Five hundred dollars for a horse, when his sons and daughters are barefoot and his wife—”
“There’s something else you should know before you jump into tryin’ to change things out there.”
His tone forewarned her. At least, she thought it had, until he spoke again.
“Carlita isn’t…what I mean to say is…Morley and Carlita aren’t…” Breaking ey
e contact, he turned to stare straight ahead. She watched veins pop up on the backs of his hands, a sure sign of tension.
She gripped the edge of the seat a little tighter. Although he had slowed down during their discussion, she had retained her death-grip on the wagon seat, lest he drive straight across one of those gravel beds he called gulleys.
“Morley and Carlita are not married.” His statement took her by complete surprise.
“Not married?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Grant. That’s wrong. What about the children? How could Morley rear his children in a home where their mother and father—”
“Truth known, it isn’t, well, it isn’t what you’d call a normal household.”
Normal? “Whatever do you mean?”
“Well, they’re not really Morley’s kids, they’re Carlita’s kids, and Carlita—”
“Not Morley’s children! You can’t expect me to believe that.”
“Well, I mean, he fathered ’em, all right.”
Madolyn wished suddenly that she were the swooning type, for short of passing out, she saw no recourse other than to continue this delicate conversation—convention and personal comfort aside. She pressed on. “Then they are Morley’s children, Mr. Grant.”
“Technically, yes. Truth is, Carlita’s just his maid. I mean, Morley doesn’t claim those kids, not as heirs or anything like that.”
Madolyn slumped forward. Never had she heard of anything so barbaric. Never had she imagined a member of her own family…But there was Papa. She could almost hear Miss Abigail hiss, Like father, like son.
“You mean, she cooks his meals, but he doesn’t allow her to eat at the table?”
“I’ve never known her to eat at the table with him. By the same token, I’ve never heard her complain.”
“Spoken like a true man, Mr. Grant. You think a woman takes such punishment because she likes it? Not on your life.”
“I’ve known women who had it worse.”
“Perhaps, but this is my brother.” Suddenly the dreariness of the desolate landscape engulfed her. “They must have been…uh, together a long time. I mean, the children…George Washington is fourteen you said.”
“Thereabouts.”
“Fourteen years. And he…” Madolyn struggled to hold her emotions in check. She could not cry in front of this man; she simply could not. “I mean, there are six children.”
“Yep.”
“How unspeakably wicked. Those poor dear children.” Suddenly overcome by the afternoon heat, and by the wind that tore at her bun and buffeted her straw bonnet, Madolyn laid her parasol at her feet and dug into her reticule, producing a linen handkerchief with which to mop her brow and wipe her neck inside her high collar. Tyler Grant and her brother were right about one thing—this barbaric land was no place for a lady.
Watching Maddie’s starch wilt hit Tyler where he lived. He could tell she was near tears, and it was all his fault. Well, most of it. If she had gone back to Boston when Morley sent word…If she hadn’t come out here in the first place…If he hadn’t…He owed her an explanation, damnit. Suddenly, on the other side of Aguja Creek, he halted the team in the shade of a madrone tree. She came instantly alert.
“What are you doing?”
“Calm down, Maddie. I just want to talk to you a minute.”
“You seemed perfectly capable of talking and driving at the same time.”
He chuckled. “You say the damnedest things.”
“And you swear more than any human I have ever known.”
“That’s possible.” He considered. “You comin’ from Boston and bein’ involved with woman suffrage, I’d have thought you might know something about swearin’.”
“The two have nothing in common.”
“From what I understand, you people don’t intend to stop with gettin’ the vote for women. Aren’t you aimin’ at other rights now held primarily by men?”
She nodded warily.
“What about swearin’?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t women want the right to swear, too?” That touched a nerve! He blanched at her eager response. Damned if he hadn’t been right. With her dander up, Maddie Sinclair was one hell of a fighter. And an attractive one, to boot.
“That is exactly the sort of backward mentality we are fighting, Mr. Grant. Chauvinism. We intend to better the world, yes. Bettering the world means that a lot of conventions enjoyed by men will not only not be appropriated by women, but will be disenfranchised altogether.”
“Appropriated? Disenfranchised? Sounds like you’re serious.”
“Make sport, if you will, but yes, we are serious.” A loose curl blew around the vicinity of her left ear. Tyler lifted a hand to tuck it back, then froze at the terror in her eyes.
“I’m sure you didn’t stop here in the middle of the desert to discuss woman suffrage,” she accused.
“Town’s just around the next bend, Maddie. You’re perfectly safe with me.”
“Safe?” He could tell she was discomfited; likely she hadn’t expected him to recognize the source of her discomfort.
“Give me a minute,” he said. “I want to explain something…to, uh, apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“For using you.”
Her green eyes opened wide. She directed her gaze to the slick, almost barkless branches of the madrone.
“Like I said earlier,” he explained, “Morley and I have been friends for twenty years. We were partners for better than fourteen of those years. We own a bit of land, here in Texas and across the Rio Grande in Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
He nodded. “Six months ago the Mexican government confiscated our property over there—the ranch and all the livestock on it.”
“Whatever had you done?”
“Nothin’. It had nothin’ to do with breakin’ the law. One government gave us the land, for service in their fight against Maximilian—”
That caught her attention. He watched her eyes grow round, as for the first time, she seemed to concentrate on his tale, rather than on him, a man to be feared. Unguarded, her expression relaxed, her features softened. Her lips parted. She ran her tongue around them. Inviting.
Unconscious of it, he knew. But he wasn’t unconscious of it. Surprised, maybe, but he was definitely aware of the woman and her stunning effect on him.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the present Mexican government decided to take it all back. By longstandin’ agreement I ran the ranch in Mexico and Morley ran our spread here.” He paused, glanced around, taking in the Texas land he had never given thought to losing until Morley Damn-his-hide interfered. “When Mexico kicked us out, Morley refused to allow me to bring our Mexican cattle over here.”
“Refused? Why would he do that?”
“Several reasons. He’s afraid of infectin’ our Texas herd with hoof-and-mouth disease. A legitimate concern, but I found a solution for it. Then, too, he didn’t want to risk the Mexican government crossin’ the river and takin’ back not only our Mexican cattle but all the others.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a feud if you ask me.”
“I agree.” His eyes danced over her face. “That makes two things we agree on.”
Quickly she turned away, but not before he glimpsed the splotches of color on her cheeks.
“Boots for the boys,” he coaxed, “and Morley’s cantankerousness.”
When she refused to respond, he continued. “Look, Maddie, I’m sorry. I apologize.” He watched her purse her lips and stare straight ahead. “I should’ve played it straight with you.”
Her chin tipped up a degree or so.
“I shouldn’t have taken you to Goldie’s.”
Her pursed lips tightened into a tight wad. Her knee started bouncing, and he knew she was tapping that impatient toe of hers against the wagon bed.
“Damnit, Maddie. I’m sorry.”
Another lengthy moment passed be
fore she said, “What about that newspaperman?”
“Donnell? Hell, I explained about him.”
Again, he caught her attention. She turned on him, her green eyes fighting. “You explained nothing. You set me up—”
“I did it for the good of the town.”
“The good of the town? How is my descent into disgrace good for Buckhorn?”
“It wasn’t meant to be that way. As a matter of fact, there is no Buckhorn.”
“No Buckhorn? You talk in riddles, sir.” When he opened his mouth to continue, she interrupted. “I am not interested in your lies, Mr. Grant.”
That did it. Tyler reached out, grabbed her pointed little chin, and pulled it around. She refused to meet his eye, but that didn’t stop him.
“Your brother, damn his hide, divided the town into his part, Horn, and my part, Buck.”
“Why would he do such a stupid thing?”
“That’s three, Maddie.” He was able to hold her gaze for one brief instant, before she lowered her eyes. “To answer your question, he’s low-down, mean-spirited—”
“He’s my brother, Mr. Grant.”
“Take it from one who’s had experience, Maddie, loyalty will get you nowhere with that scoundrel. Not long after he refused to allow me to move our Mexican cattle over here, I rode into Buckhorn one day to find that he had divided the town straight down the middle of the railroad tracks.”
“The railroad tracks?”
“North side’s Horn—Morley’s territory; south side’s Buck, mine.”
“That’s what he meant. And Mr. Rolly?”
“I don’t know what Rolly told you, but by tacit agreement, no one crosses the tracks.”
“What did you do about such foolishness? Surely you didn’t just go along.”
“Hell, no, I didn’t just go along. Give me more credit than that.”
“What did you do to rectify the matter, Mr. Grant?”
“I went across the tracks and tried to talk sense to several men. They would have none of it.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Neither could I. You see, by the time I learned about it, the businessmen had drawn their own battle lines. Those who remained loyal to Morley moved to Horn; those who were loyal to me, stayed in or moved to Buck. There wasn’t much I could do at that point.”
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