A Lady of the West (23 page)

Ben walked up. “Yeah?”

“The old man's got a bee in his bonnet about you. Stay out of his sight.”

“Sure.” Ben started to walk off.

“Wait a minute.”

Ben stopped and again said, “Yeah?”

“You done any work with that gun?”

“What kind of work?”

“Don't play dumb with me. You know what kind of work. You ever killed anybody for pay?”

Ben took a drag off his cigarette. “I reckon I've faced a few for my own reasons, but not for nobody else.”

“You willing to hire out?”

“Depends.”

“On what? How much money?”

“Nope. On who'll be on the other end of my barrel. There's some men it just don't pay to rile.”

“You yeller?” Garnet sneered, hoping to goad him.

“Nope. Just careful. Are you just making conversation or have you got somebody in mind?”

Rather than answer directly, Garnet said, “What do you think of Roper?”

Ben bared his teeth around the cigarette. “Like I said, some men it don't pay to rile.”

“You don't think you could take him?”

“Let's just say I'm not sure enough of it to risk my life on a fight that ain't mine.” Ben walked off, careful to keep his cold rage from showing on his face. The son of a bitch wanted him to kill his own brother! But why? He didn't dare let himself be seen talking to Jake, to maybe find out a reason. All he could do was worry and feel his anger grow. If Garnet kept asking, sooner or later he'd find somebody willing to go up against Jake. Likely as not, it would be a back-shooter, and that worried Ben.

Twenty years they'd waited, and now the waiting crawled on his skin like ants. For the first time in twenty years he was
home,
standing on Sarratt ground, looking at the house where he'd been born and where his parents had been murdered. By God, nothing was going to stop them now, not Garnet or anybody else on this ranch, not even the woman inside that house who ultimately held the ownership of the kingdom in her hands. She would marry Jake because they wouldn't allow her any other course of action.

Ben wondered what she was like. He hadn't even asked Jake her name. He didn't think much of her, though, marrying a man like McLain. He'd watched the house as much as he could without being obvious, but he hadn't seen any woman who could possibly have been her. Three Mexican women, two middl-eaged and one young, had come and gone from the house; they were obviously servants. Another young Mexican woman who apparently slept out back of the bunkhouse had hung around all morning eyeing him like a buzzard waiting for a steer to die. He'd heard her name was Angelina and she was lushly beautiful, but Ben was too edgy to be interested in the sex she was clearly offering him.

In fact, there was no point in hanging around. He'd made contact with Jake, satisfied himself that his brother was all right, and they'd planned where and when to meet. He might as well saddle up and ride
out, give himself a little extra time to intercept Lonny and make certain their men didn't blunder too close to the ranch and alert McLain. Just as soon as he managed to get word to Jake that Garnet was looking to hire someone to gun him down, he'd leave.

He walked around after supper, just wandering and smoking like he had the night before. Jake was nowhere in sight, but he hadn't expected him to be. He just waited, put out his cigarette, and wandered some more. When he paused under a big cottonwood tree, Jake murmured, “Here I am.”

The shadows under the tree hid them from view, especially since Jake was squatting with his back to the trunk. It was another moonless night and some clouds had drifted in to blot out the stars, making the night dark enough. Ben leaned back against the trunk, too, lifting one leg to plant his boot against the wood. “Garnet tried to hire me to kill you,” he said, making certain his voice was too low to carry.

Jake grunted. “I've been watching my back since the day I got here.”

“Why is he after you?”

“He's got a bad itch for the little sister and I won't let him scratch it.”

Ben grunted. He couldn't see getting that worked up over one particular woman, but he had seen it happen to too many men for him to be surprised.

“I guess I'll take myself on out of here tomorrow, then. We'll wait for you.”

“I'll be there.”

“Keep watching your back.”

“Yeah.”

Ben rode out early next morning, without saying anything to anybody. He hadn't done any work to speak of, so he didn't ask for any pay. He just saddled up and left.

Jake didn't watch his brother ride out or say anything when Ben's departure was commented on later.
In two days he planned to follow him. Before he left, however, he had to see Victoria and tell her to stay in the house and make certain Emma and Celia did, too. But how the hell was he going to talk to her when she hadn't poked her nose outside in days?

He saw Emma the next day, late in the afternoon when she had stepped into the courtyard for a moment. He beckoned to her and she walked to the gate.

“How's Victoria?” he asked abruptly.

“Tired.” Emma's face showed signs of strain, too.

“Why haven't any of you been outside?”

“It's safer inside.” She gave him a wry smile, one that quickly faded. “You haven't found whoever shot at Victoria?”

“No. There's no sign. Is that why she's staying inside?”

“That, and to watch Celia.”

“Why does Celia need watching? Any more than usual, that is.”

Emma's eyes were black as she looked up at him. “The Major tried to get her alone in the barn.” Once she would have been mortified at having to say such a thing to a man, but they had all changed in the short while they had been in the territory.

Jake cursed under his breath and didn't apologize. “I'm leaving in the morning,” he said. “All of you stay in the house, away from Garnet—”

“Hey, Roper!”

Jake looked around to see Garnet walking toward them, looking suspicious. He nodded to Emma and walked away, leaving her biting her lip.

When Jake joined him Garnet jerked his head toward Emma, who was returning to the house. “Don't tell me you're gettin' sweet on
her!
But I guess she'd be the most grateful of the bunch, wouldn't she?”

Jake kept his face expressionless and didn't answer. When there was no response, Garnet scowled. “What're you doing up here at the house?”

“Why're you asking?”

Dull red colored Garnet's face. “Because I'm the goddamn foreman, that's why, and everything on this ranch is my business!”

“Do tell.” Jake walked away, his senses attuned to the man behind him, his skin crawling as he waited for the slightest sign that Garnet was reaching for leather. He was tense, ready to throw himself to the side and come up with his own hand filled with iron, but Garnet didn't move.

Emma kept her torment to herself all night. He was leaving. How on earth was she supposed to tell Victoria? It would break her heart, but she'd have to be told so she would know that they no longer had Jake's protection.

She was so angry on Victoria's behalf that she couldn't sleep and lay awake for hours. How
could
he leave after the things he'd said to Victoria, and the way he'd kissed her? Emma had instinctively trusted him and now she felt doubly betrayed, but knew that Victoria would feel even worse because she loved him.

Still, she couldn't stop herself from hoping that she had misunderstood him somehow, that his words had meant something else. That had to be it. She consoled herself with that thought and was finally exhausted enough to sleep.

Emma woke early and dressed without paying attention to what she was putting on. She would go down to the bunkhouse and ask Jake exactly what he'd meant. She hurried out of the house, not letting herself think how improper it was for her to go alone to the bunkhouse. But the hands always began work with the dawn and she didn't think anyone would still be abed.

The early morning air was cold, but warming rapidly as the sun came over the horizon. Emma hugged her arms to herself and increased her pace. When she reached the bunkhouse she knocked on the closed
door, but couldn't hear any noise from inside. She knocked again just to be safe, then eased the door open. The big, dreary, low-ceilinged room was empty, though the floor and every surface was covered with the paraphernalia of the working cowhand. She turned, uncertain of what to do next, and walked swiftly to the stable in the hope that someone would still be about.

She was lucky. She found a lone Mexican, whose name she didn't know, idly pitching hay into an empty stall. She prayed that he spoke English.

“Do you know where Roper is?” she asked.

The man looked up, his round brown face blank.

“Roper?” she asked again. “Have you seen him?”

“Si,“
the man said.

“Do you know where he is?”

“He left, señorita. Early.”

“Did he say where he was going? When he'd be back?”

The Mexican shook his head. “He quit, señorita. He left and took his gear with him.”

Emma swallowed, feeling sick. It was true, then.

“Thank you,” she said, and walked back to the house.

Victoria, too, was an early riser. Knowing there was nothing to be gained by putting it off, Emma went directly to her cousin's room and knocked. Victoria opened the door with an anxious look as she shoved her last hairpin into place.

“What's wrong?” She knew something had to be wrong, or Emma would have waited for her to appear downstairs. “Has something happened to Celia?”

“No.” Emma stepped inside the room and put her hands over Victoria's, holding them and forcing her to stand still. “Jake has left.”

The words were simple enough, but they didn't make sense. Victoria frowned, wondering what Emma was trying to tell her. “Has he found out who shot at us the other day?”

“No.” Emma closed her eyes briefly. “Victoria, he's
gone. He packed his gear and left. One of the Mexicans said he quit and rode out this morning.”

It was like an invisible punch to the chest. Victoria stared at Emma and listened to her own heart laboring to beat. Her face was white. “He …
left?”

“Yes.”

Odd, how the very air felt dead, how it sounded dead, muffling the words.

Emma put an arm around her to brace her and somehow she found herself sitting down.

“I know we haven't left the house much lately, but now we'll have to be doubly careful,” Emma said, trying to turn her mind to the most pressing matters. “None of us should dare set foot outside.”

“No, of course not,” Victoria murmured. “Not with Garnet …”

Not with Garnet uncontrolled, now. Only Jake had kept him in line. But Jake was gone.

Gone!

The light had gone out of the sunny morning. Victoria sat there for a long time, helpless to do anything more than absorb the combined battering of grief and betrayal, the emptiness of knowing herself not only unloved but unimportant to the point that he hadn't even told her he was leaving. He had meant everything to her, and she had been nothing to him.

He had said, “Trust me,” and she had. She had remained and had endangered both Celia and Emma with her foolishness. They would have to pay the price and live like caged animals, just to survive.

It was all the more painful because he was the only man she had ever loved. The war had interrupted what would have been her courting years in Augusta, so she had never even had a chance to fall in love before. But she also knew that her reserve was so strong that it was likely those young men would never have gotten past that inner wall to the passion inside, as Jake had. She had risked everything for him, both
socially and emotionally, and he had ridden away as easily as if she had been a whore like Angelina.

Emma had left her alone to deal with her agony in private, for which Victoria was pathetically grateful. What was pride? It couldn't put food on the table or clothes on her back; it couldn't protect the people she loved. Yet she clung to it as her last defense. No matter what it cost her, when she went downstairs she would show no hint of her agony on her face.

Perhaps sometime in the future she would take out her pain and examine it, but perhaps not. For now she had to deal with their survival because Jake's departure had endangered them all. They could remain within the protection of the house, but their safety even then was dubious. For the first time she regretted the Major's precipitous decline, for at least he might have made Garnet wary of breaching the sanctuary of the house.

She had seen the hate in Garnet's eyes when he looked at her, and the lust when he'd looked at Celia. There was nothing now to stop him from taking her sister; he would shoot Victoria down without compunction, should she try to stop him. She knew she would have to try, as would Emma. They would both fight like tigers for those they loved.

They would have to protect themselves until they could leave. And that would have to be soon. She quailed inside at the thought of venturing into the territory alone, but the alternative was unbearable. They would have to start planning immediately.

At last she stood and took a deep breath. Sitting in her room wouldn't bring him back. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a slim young woman with a somber face, but she satisfied herself that she didn't look as if she were going into a decline. With her back straight and her chin up, she went downstairs.

It was almost lunchtime. She hadn't realized how
long she had been sitting dazed in her room. When Lola served the meal, Victoria forced herself to eat. Personal loss didn't break the heart so much as affect the stomach, she realized, but heartache sounded much more romantic than stomachache.

There were only the three of them at the table, the Major having failed to return to the house. He had become so erratic that no one was surprised, or concerned. When they had finished eating, Victoria folded her napkin and looked at Emma. “We'll have to leave.”