Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (33 page)

“You’re not.”

“Nope.”

“Not in England?”

“Not in Timbuktu.”

Christian stared at him for a second before sitting behind the desk with a sigh.

“I don’t know whether that makes you a smart and shrewd man or the biggest fool I’ve ever met.”

“It makes me a fool for not insisting she marry me in the first place,” he said.  “Fact is, she was already knocked up and in a bad way when I told her I would bring her here so she could start a new life.  I shoulda gotten the captain of the ship to do the deed, but by the time I thought of that it was too late.”

Christian stared at him through the entire speech, elbows on his desk, hands steepled.  “I swear to God, I don’t know why I’m friends with you people.  Michael marrying someone he met the day before, you plucking some woman out of London.”  He blinked.  “That’s not even your baby?”

“Amelia’s baby is mine in every way except for … except for how it got there.”

Christian just shook his head.  He folded the deed certificate that he’d opened on the desk.

“I’m not signing anything over to anyone until all of the legal channels have been followed,” he said.  “I let Michael marry Charlie before he had his name legally changed and that turned into an administrative nightmare for me.  I’m not putting Amelia’s name on any deeds until you’ve married her good and proper.”

Eric scratched his head.  “I suppose that’s only fair.”

“Jacinta!” Christian called.

Several long seconds later Jacinta appeared in the office doorway, sour as a pickle.  “Yes?”

“Put this back in the file.”  Christian picked up the deed and held it out to her.

Jacinta swept forward, taking her time walking up to the big desk.  She snatched the deed from Christian, giving Eric her best stink-eye the whole time.  Eric actually sagged under the glare.  Satisfied, Jacinta huffed and stomped back to the office with the deed.

“Now I suggest that you get Amelia in here as soon as possible to make things legal between the two of you.  Then we’ll worry about the deed to your ranch.”

“Right,” Eric agreed.

Before he could say more Jacinta swept out of the office again as if someone had let a bear loose.  She charged for the door.

“Where are you going?” Christian called after her.

“I’ve got an errand to run,” she answered without looking back, stuffing something in her purse.

Christian shook his head.  “I blame you for that.”

“What, for her?”

He crossed his arms.  “She’s been peevish and unreliable since the day you came back with a bride.  Used to be I could count on her.  Now she’s got all these ‘errands’ to run.  It’s your fault.”

“Jacinta is her own fault.”  Eric rapped his knuckles on the desk and shoved his hat back on his head.  “I’ll bring Amelia in here in the next couple of days to make things official, then we can take care of the deed,” he said as he turned to go.

“You’d better,” Christian charged him as he walked away.

Eric strode down the center aisle of the courtroom and back out into the sunshine.  A balmy June day greeted him.  Just the sort of day where a fellow started his life anew.

He hadn’t gone more than five steps before a man that he’d never seen before came striding up to him from the other side of the street.  He wore a fine suit and a curious frown

“Are you Mr. Quinlan?  Those people over there said you’re Mr. Quinlan.”

“I am,” Eric nodded, smiling still.  “What can I do for you, friend?”  He extended his hand.

The stranger took it.  “Roscoe Hawkins, Frontier Suppliers.  I believe you worked with one of our representatives this past winter.”

Eric stared at the man, unease creeping up his spine.  “Did I?”

Hawkins looked equally as uncertain.  “Why, I believe so.  We purchased close to a hundred head of Black Angus cattle from you in December.”

“No, no I don’t believe you did,” Eric said, scratching his head and readjusting his hat.

“Are you sure?”  Hawkins rubbed his chin.  “The purchase order is pretty clear.”  He pulled a paper from the inside pocket of his coat and opened it to read it.  “Right here.  Ninety-Seven head of Black Angus cattle purchased on the fifteenth of December, 1895, picked up on the eighteenth.  I remember clearly when the order came through.  I thought it was awfully odd that you insist we pick them up at night.  And, frankly, because you undersold, Mr. Quinlan.  By a lot.”

Eric’s gut lurched down to his boots and his throat clenched.  “I was in London, England in December last year,” he said.

Hawkins shifted, rolling his shoulders and looking anxiously to the side.  “You are Mr. Quinlan though?  Mr. Curtis Quinlan.”

Hell.

“I’m Mr. Eric Quinlan,” he said.  “Curtis is my cousin.  And you say he sold you ninety-seven head of cattle?  At a loss?”  Amelia would have one thing to say about it: I told you so.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Quinlan,” Hawkins writhed in discomfort.  “I was sent here to see if you had more to sell.  I told my bosses it was too good to be true, that there had to be some kind of mistake.”

“There’s some kind of mistake all right,” Eric growled.  He pushed past Hawkins, heading for the hotel.  Two steps later he thought better of it and turned back.  “I hate to be abrupt, Mr. Hawkins, but you just up and proved my wife was right about something.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry,” Hawkins replied with all the apology a man could muster.  “So … I don’t suppose we could come to another agreement?  My bosses have given me leeway to negotiate the price if that’s what it takes.”

Hellfire.  Where was Roscoe Hawkins a year ago?

“I’m sorry, but I just signed a contract with a Canadian outfit.”  He thought better of his answer.  “I tell you what though, you keep in touch with me.  You never know when another opportunity might come along.  Now if you’ll excuse me.”  He nodded to the man and turned back down Main Street.

Curtis owed him some answers.  There had to be more to the story than selling cattle and saying they froze.  He owed it to Curtis to hear his explanation.

“Mr. Quinlan!”

Eric twisted to the side to see old Mrs. Wayne charging at him from the general store.  “Mrs. Wayne.”  He tipped his hat to her, glancing anxiously on up the road toward the hotel.  His wagon was already parked outside and Roy was loading suitcases in the back.  Amelia and Delilah stood on the porch.

“Mr. Quinlan, I want to talk to you.”  Mrs. Wayne stopped in front of him, hands on her hips.

“I’d love to talk to you, ma’am, but I got-”

“There’s a rumor going around town that you’re planning to replace Kent Porter as sheriff.”

“Well, I-”

“I think it’s a damn fine idea, son.  The sooner we get that badge on a real man’s chest the better.”

Eric’s protest fumbled on his lips.  He puffed out a breath.  “I thank you for the vote of confidence, Mrs. Wayne, but I got a ranch to look after.”

“Get someone else to do it,” Mrs. Wayne insisted.  “You’ve got the whole town that needs looking after.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, ma’am, but….”  Eric could see by the look in Mrs. Wayne’s eyes that any argument he presented would go nowhere.  “Aw, hell.  Sorry, Mrs. Wayne, I got something I have to take care of.”

He nodded to the old woman and continued out into Main Street and up to the hotel porch with wide, fast strides.

“Eric!” Delilah brightened as he charged up the stairs.  “How nice of you to join us.  Ready for your big move?”

Amelia’s smile dropped as she studied him.  She knew something was wrong.

“I’m ready for something all right.”  He nodded to Delilah then met Amelia’s eyes.  “I just ran into some man named Hawkins.”

“Yes, he came here first looking for you,” Amelia said.

“Yeah, well, apparently he wants to buy some cattle from me.  Some more cattle, like the ones he bought back in December.”

“Back in December?”  Delilah crossed her arms.

“Curtis sold them.”

“They didn’t freeze?”  Amelia walked to him and took his arm, as if someone had thrown him a life preserver in stormy seas.

“Nope,” he told her, back unclenching a fraction.  “We gotta get back to the ranch and figure out what the hell Curtis is up to.”

To his surprise, Amelia smiled.  It was almost contagious.

“I’m ready,” she said.  “Let’s go home.”

Chapter Nineteen

Eric was more quiet than usual on the drive out to the ranch.  Amelia was loathe to disturb his thoughts, rubbing her belly and biting her lip over everything he’d told her when they’d set out.  She should have been overjoyed that the man Hawkins wanted to do business with him, but she wasn’t.

She squeezed Eric’s arm as they rounded the corner from the road onto the long drive leading up to his house.  The cattle were in the front pasture closest to the road today.  It was the first time Amelia had seen them up close.  They were huge beasts but as docile as she could imagine, all black with an occasional rust-brown cow here and there.  A few of them looked up as they drove past.  Amelia had the sense that if they’d been human they would have waved and smiled at Eric in adoration.

“It just don’t make any sense,” Eric sighed, proving his thoughts had been noisy even though he’d stopped talking.  “Curtis wouldn’t do something like that to me.  He wouldn’t.”

Amelia held her tongue.

The ranch hadn’t changed since the last time Amelia had been there.  A few horses walked in the corral beside the barn, ones she recognized as Eric’s stallion, Titan, and ones that must have belonged to day workers.  A smallish gray horse was still saddled and tied up on the outside of the corral.  Amelia thought nothing of it until they drove closer to the house.

The front door opened and Jacinta Archer marched out onto the porch.  Her bright aqua dress had a smudge on the skirt that Amelia could see from yards away.  Jacinta wore a frown that could have made Olivia seem friendly.  It deepened to a bitter glare when Jacinta saw them.

With her nose tipped up in the air, Jacinta stomped down the stairs and across the front yard to the gray horse.  “Hello, Eric,” she said as she passed.  She deliberately ignored Amelia with a haughtiness of a queen.

“What are you doing here, Jacinta?” Eric asked, hopping down from the wagon with a scowl.

“I brought Jed his lunch,” Jacinta said without looking at them, leading her horse to the stone mounting block and climbing onto it.

Jacinta Archer on horseback was the most incongruous thing Amelia had ever seen.  She knew how to handle her mount though.  She took the reins and kicked the horse’s flank with practiced grace.  Without another word she was trotting down the drive toward the road.

“What the hell was that all about?” Eric grumbled and stomped around the wagon to help Amelia down.  She was easily as big as a whale now, but Eric still lifted her to the ground like she weighed nothing.

“Eric!  What brings you out here so early?” Curtis greeted them from the porch.  He was dressed like he was going to high tea, a gold watch fob crossing the front of his vest.  “I thought you’d changed your mind about coming out.”

The frustrated curiosity Eric radiated over Jacinta blew into a full storm of anger.  Amelia would have been terrified if it had been directed at her.  She hung back a few steps as Eric strode to the porch, temper high.

Curtis didn’t lose his oily smile for a moment.  “Got a bee in your bonnet, cuz?”

Eric fumed his way up the steps.  It was only when he stood toe-to-toe with Curtis that his anger faltered.

“I ran into a man in town this morning, a Mr. Roscoe Hawkins from Frontier Suppliers.”  In spite of his smile, a flash of color crept up Curtis’s neck.  “He said he wanted to buy some cattle.”

“Well that’s just fine, isn’t it!”  Curtis’s voice shook in spite of its cheer.

“He said he’d bought ninety-seven head from me in December and that I gave him such a bargain price that his bosses wanted to deal again.  Except then he said he thought my name was Curtis Quinlan.”  Eric finished by crossing his arms and staring hard at Curtis.

“Oh,
that
Frontier Suppliers!”  Curtis laughed.  Amelia’s blood ran cold at the sound.  She waited for the excuse, and sure enough, “He’s right.  I did sell a few head to him in December, although I think he’s got the numbers off.”

“You sold
my
cattle?”  Eric’s scowl deepened.

“I had to, Eric!”  Curtis put a hand on his arm and showed him across the porch to the furniture, inviting him to sit.  Eric remained standing.  “Things were bad, really bad.  You know how bad they were.  And your trip to London was awful expensive.  Things were looking dire.  I had to do something.  That man from Frontier Suppliers came through town, looking to buy from the ranches.  Well, it was sell at a small loss or have no money at all to keep the rest of the herd warm and fed through the winter.  I had to do something.  Why, at that point you hadn’t come up with anything over there and the whole trip was looking like a waste.  What was I supposed to do?”