A Texan's Honor (21 page)

Emily was sure her father was speaking facetiously. She had only met the Abercrombies once, but she was certain they'd rather jump into Boston Harbor and drown than be forced to move to Texas.

“Why can't you spend the winter in Texas and the rest of the year in Boston?” Emily asked Bret.

“That seems like a good solution,” Sam said. “You don't have to be in Boston all the time to get that company shipshape. Let your other cousin keep an eye on things while you're gone. Besides, one winter and Emily will have half the young men in Texas trailing after her.”

“I won't marry anybody I don't love.”

“I hear Galveston is growing by leaps and bounds,” Sam said. “That means lots of young men going there to make their fortune. You ought to go this winter. If I'm feeling well enough, I'll go with you.”

“Then I could stay in Boston,” Bret said.

“No,” Emily said. “The deal is that you get rid of the rustlers and spend the winters in Texas until I get married. In exchange, you get to vote the shares whether Dad or I hold them. Is that okay with you?” she asked her father.

“It's not quite what I wanted, but it seems a good compromise.”

“How about you?” she said, turning to Bret.

Bret appeared to be undecided. She thought of several points she could use to advance her argument, but decided against voicing any of them. He understood the situation as well as she did. What he
couldn't
know—and she didn't intend to tell him—was that she believed she was beginning to fall in love
with him. It was too soon to tell, because she really didn't know how it felt to be in love. There was no point in talking to Bertie, because she didn't like men. Emily would have to find time to visit Ida. She had to have an explanation for the confusion in her mind, for the unfamiliar feelings that assaulted her at odd times during the day. She was certain of only one thing. She had to find a way to keep Bret from going back to Boston until she figured out what she was feeling and what she wanted to do about it.

“It wouldn't be suitable for me to be the only chaperon of an unmarried woman,” Bret said. “If your father isn't well enough to come with us, we'll have to find someone else.”

“Bertie,” Sam said.

“Ida,” Emily suggested.

“I was thinking of Isabelle,” Bret said. “She always spends part of the winter in San Antonio. Maybe I could convince her to go to Galveston instead.”

“We can hire someone if Isabelle can't go.” But Emily hoped she could. After all she'd heard, she wanted to meet the woman who could gather up a bunch of teenage orphan boys and head across Texas in a wagon.

Bret and her father took a few more minutes to hammer out a couple of details about handling the voting power of the stocks, but Emily didn't pay attention. She would keep the ranch and she wouldn't have to go to Boston. The only question remaining was: did she want Bret? And if she did, could she get him?

Bret enjoyed the solitude of the Texas night. He rarely walked at night in Boston because he was too tired or had work to do. He didn't enjoy walking down crowded streets with houses on each side pressed up against the sidewalk. He would occasionally walk
through the Commons, but it was usually thronged with people trying to enjoy a little open space. He had nothing against children or babies, but screaming children and crying babies didn't contribute to the peaceful atmosphere he was looking for.

Out here on the seemingly endless Texas prairie, he could turn his back on the ranch buildings and feel he was the only man in the world. The night had its own sounds—the howl of a coyote, the call of a whippoorwill, the sound of a horse blowing through its nostrils, the whisper of the breeze over the waving grass—but these sounds comforted rather than distracted. They were part of Nature's plan for the night. They made Bret feel like he, too, was part of the plan.

The cool, dry breeze felt good against his skin. This was Texas, and he was tempted to take off his coat, loosen his tie, and open his shirt collar—he'd changed into a suit for dinner—but the habit acquired in Boston was strong. The struggle was brief, and Texas won. He removed his coat and tie and spread them over a mesquite bush. Walking down the trail that led to Fort Worth, he stopped on the edge of the flat-topped hill Sam had chosen for his ranch house. He stood with feet apart, arms crossed, face into the gentle breeze, wondering what the hell kind of mess he'd gotten himself into.

Every time he opened his mouth, he got more firmly enmeshed in Emily's life in a way guaranteed to complicate his life in Boston. Uncle Silas would be furious when he didn't bring Emily back with him, but that wouldn't compare to his rage when he learned Bret had been given the right to vote twenty-five percent of the company stock. Bret might be able to force his uncle to accept the proposed changes, but there was no way he would ever be accepted by his uncle outside of the office. Joseph would probably
hate him as well. Working in Abbott & Abercrombie would be like fighting a perpetual war.

Bret hadn't realized until he had been at the ranch a few days that he was tired of fighting. His whole life had been a struggle of one kind or another. Except for the years spent on Jake's ranch, none of those struggles had ever ended up making him happy or feeling good about himself. He was constantly struggling to keep from losing everything he'd gained.

But what had he gained? After six years of working long hours, he was barely making enough money to pay his bills. He certainly couldn't afford the clothes, horses, carriages, fancy restaurants, parties, and balls of his cousin's social world. Yet because he was a member of the Abbott family, he was pretty much cut off from the social world he could afford. Professionally, the prospects were equally dismal. His work wasn't appreciated, his ideas were resented, and his uncle wished he'd never left Texas.

What was he trying to prove, and who would care whether he succeeded or failed?

“A penny for your thoughts.”

Bret had heard a door close, but he hadn't been aware that Emily had followed him until she spoke.

“Not for a hundred dollars,” he said, turning to look at her. “They're just a lot of questions.”

“Can I help you find any answers?”

“I'm still trying to sort out the questions.”

She couldn't help, because she was part of the problem. The more he got to know and like her, the more his life in Boston seemed a futile exercise in blind determination to achieve a goal he now wasn't sure he wanted. He'd started off wanting to be accepted as part of the family. He'd been accepted wholeheartedly by some and grudgingly by others. Yet he didn't
feel
accepted. He'd wanted to prove his
ability. His work had gotten glowing praise from his boss, but his uncle's resentment denied him the feeling that he was respected. Who was he living for, himself or his uncle?

“Dad says you're a man with a lot of ghosts in your past.”

Bret's laugh was harsh. “Not all of them are ghosts.”

“Would it be easier if they were?”

“It might be even worse if they were ghosts. Then the problem could never be worked out.”

As long as he could remember, he'd carried a pocket of boiling anger in the pit of his stomach. Even during the best times, his determination to go back to Boston had never weakened. It was the memory of his uncle's letter saying he didn't want him that had given him a reason to stay alive when he lived on the streets. It was the anger boiling in his gut that had kept him warm through two winters of sleeping in alleys—or barns when he could find an unlocked door.

“You don't look like a man with terrible problems.”

Bret couldn't help smiling. “You look too pretty to have problems, either, but we both know you do.”

“You're better at covering them up than I am.”

Bret turned away, stared out over the prairie. “When you live from hand to mouth on the street, you learn never to let people see what you feel.”

“What did you feel?”

It would be impossible to explain. Total rejection, total isolation had to be experienced to be understood. “Mostly anger at the people who'd hanged my father, and at my family for not wanting me.”

“Then why did you go back?”

“To prove something.”

“What?”

He turned toward her. “At one time I could list all
the reasons without stopping for breath. Now I'm not sure.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He turned away again. “No.”

He could hear her sigh. “Have you decided what you're going to do about the rustling?”

“Yes, but I don't want to talk about that, either.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“What you're going to do when you go to Galveston this winter. The parties—”

Her soft laughter caused him to turn to face her. “What's so funny?”

“You're worried about your job, rustlers, and me, and you want to talk about parties.”

“Not parties. You. I need to know what you're looking for in a husband.”

She sobered and walked a few steps away from him. “I've never thought much about a husband, but I guess I'd better start thinking.”

“It's not likely you'll find a husband and get married right away. Even if you find somebody you like and who likes you, a few months' acquaintance probably won't be enough to base a marriage on. And you can't be sure he'll still be interested when you go back the next winter.”

She turned around to face him. “Then he couldn't really love me, could he?”

Her head was tilted to the left, her expression akin to a young girl trying to accept bad news without showing it. Despite her father's wealth, she'd had her share of hurt. Her mother's early death, her father's illness, and now wondering if she could find a husband who would love her rather than her money.

“He might take your leaving Galveston to mean
you
didn't love
him
.”

“He would know. I would have told him.”

“Young ladies don't tell gentlemen they love them.”

“Then how is he going to know?”

“If he really loved you, there'd be a feeling between you that didn't exist with anyone else.”

“Have you ever had that feeling?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“I saw it with Jake and Isabelle. It's like they're connected. She knows when he comes into a room even when she can't see him. Most of the time, she even knows he's riding up to the house.”

He remembered times when Jake and Isabelle teased each other, times they held hands and kissed. He could even remember hearing sounds from their bedroom and squirming in his own bed because he knew what they were doing. But the memory that stuck with him most was when, while doing separate tasks, one would look up, catch the eye of the other, and smile in a way that let everybody know they were two halves of the same whole. In that look was all the love Bret had never had, the kind of love he feared he never would have.

“Maybe it was just them,” Emily volunteered.

“I saw it between Ward and Marina, Buck and Hannah. Even Drew gets a funny look every time she claps eyes on Cole, and there's no female in the world who thinks less of men than Drew.”

“I wish you didn't have to invite anybody to chaperon me. It makes me feel like you don't want to be around me.”

“That's not the reason. I explained—”

“I know what you said, but I'm talking about how I feel.”

She looked so young and helpless standing there with the moonlight on her hair and her face in partial shadow. She didn't appear dejected, but her body
lacked its usual energy. Her shoulders seemed to have sagged a little. He didn't know whether she was weary of the weight of her responsibilities or suffering because she knew her father's condition was growing worse every day. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't stand there without offering support. He stepped forward to slip his arm around her waist in a comforting gesture. He wasn't prepared for her to throw her arms around him and collapse against his chest.

Emily didn't know what moved her to put her arms around Bret and cling to him as though her life depended on it, but she felt better for having done it. She supposed she'd finally faced up to the fact that her father was dying. After he died, she'd be alone in the world. It didn't matter that she had relatives in Boston. She barely knew them, and didn't like the little bit she did know. They thought everyone in Texas was a barbarian, and she thought they were monumental snobs. They were ashamed of her father and had no reason to like her any better. Except for Joseph, she didn't like anybody in Boston.

She had the additional problems of rustlers and knowing that somebody she'd trusted had betrayed her. Now she was faced with the problem of finding a husband—or at least pretending to look for one. She might be able to fool Bret, but from what he said, nobody fooled Isabelle for long. And though Emily was very curious about her and anxious to meet her, she
didn't know if she'd like living with her for four months out of the year.

And what about the other eight months? Even after Bret got rid of the rustlers and uncovered the traitor, she'd be alone on the ranch. If one of the men could betray her, there was no reason others wouldn't. She'd never felt alone or overwhelmed before, but right now everything seemed to be weighing down on her all at once. And it didn't help that her father had spent thirty minutes right after Bret left telling her how worried he was about her. By the time she'd followed Bret to where he was standing on the hillside, she'd felt desperate to have something,
someone,
to hold onto.

Now here she was wrapped around Bret like a vine, feeling better than she had all day, yet wondering how she was going to explain her behavior to him. He'd been sent to convince her to move to Boston. Nothing had been said about his taking responsibility for her life.