Texas Rose TH2 (8 page)

"You don't have to tell us that. If it weren't for her, me and Kyle would no doubt be wilder than Indians by now. It's been a long day, Hale. We appreciate your sentiments, but let's get this over with. I didn't even know ma had a will."

Kyle, the younger brother, sat slumped in a leather chair, his hands shoved in the pockets of his dark suit. He looked as out of place in a suit as a donkey would, and his fidgeting reflected his discomfort. "Why don't you two handle this? I'm going to go down and see to the horses."

He started to rise until Jason gave him a steely glare that sent him slouching back into the chair. He muttered a curse and stared out the window, watching a fat cumulus cloud float past on a blue sky. If it hadn't been for the funeral, they'd be starting the roundup by now. It was the perfect day for it.

"You both need to hear this," Hale said. "You know your father didn't buy the ranch until your real mother died?"

Jason Harding nodded curtly. "Pa earned every cent he ever made. We've heard the tale before."

"And your stepmother, Louise, you knew she came from a wealthy family before she married your father?"

Kyle groaned and rolled his eyes heavenward. Jason merely stopped his pacing and stared out the window.

At their silence, the lawyer continued nervously, polishing his unrimmed glasses as he glanced over the papers on the desk. "You have to understand that Louise made this will out when her father died leaving her all that money. At the time, your father was already doing very well for himself. The two of you were young men with promising futures and didn't need more than you already had."

Jason threw him a look of disgust. "She showered us with everything money could buy and taught us how to behave at the same time. Quit making excuses. We loved her just like she was our own ma. Get on with it."

Hale sighed and picked up the yellowed pages in front of him. "Well, there's something that you don't know, and I don't know how I'm going to tell you this. Louise's father always did business with my father, and he's the one who drew up this will and the trust agreement for Louise. I never looked at it until your father died in that accident and it looked as if your stepmother wouldn't survive. I knew about the payments leaving the estate, but I never looked into the reason. I didn't think I would find anything. My father was a very closemouthed man, he kept everything in his head, and his files went with him. I just honored the agreement. It wasn't until I found this will that I understood."

Kyle's attention had wandered to the dancing prisms, but Jason was watching the lawyer more intently now. His eyes narrowed as the lawyer hesitated.

Hale lifted his head, noted the angry twitch of Jason's jaw, and hurriedly returned his attention to the aging papers. "Your mother, your stepmother, that is, left her entire estate to a child by the name of Evangeline Peyton Howell."

Both Jason and Kyle were staring at him now, and Hale ran his finger between his stiff collar and his neck. Both men were larger than he, and they were notorious for their quick tempers. He counted on the fact that they still didn't grasp the legal implications.

"Who in hell is Evangeline Peyton Howell?" Jason asked quietly.

Hale shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that there have been payments going out of a trust set up by your mother in this girl's name for the last seventeen years—since Cyrus, her daddy, died. The payments are sent to a woman in St. Louis for the girl's maintenance. I had always assumed that the woman was some retired servant of her father's." Or his mistress, but Hale didn't say that. Cyrus Howell had been an important man in Mineral Springs. One didn't cast wild aspersions on a man of consequence, even after he was dead.

Jason watched Hale with a dangerous calm. "All right. So ma's money goes to some female in St. Louis we've never met. Pa never let her use the money on the ranch, so it's not as if we'll miss it. She used it for foofaraws and gimcracks around the house, and we have more of those than we need. We'll not suffer for it. If her money is all that this Evangeline person has for support, I daresay she needs it more than we do."

Hale took a deep breath and polished his glasses again. "That's mighty open-minded of you. According to the trust agreement, the child inherits the bulk of the trust when she turns twenty-one, which should be roughly six months from now. I wouldn't have concerned you in the matter at all if it weren't for one thing."

Jason leaned both hands on the desk and waited. Hale glanced down at his paperwork.

"Your father's will left half his estate to you and Kyle. The other half went to Louise, as his wife. I don't believe he was any more aware of Louise's will than I was. Like I said, when she drew it up, you two had everything. She had no need to leave you anything. She was just recently wed to your father. I don't think it occurred to her that your father would leave half the ranch to her."

Jason lifted his hands from the desk and clenched them into fists. Even Kyle was listening now, and his glance went worriedly to his older brother for confirmation of what he was thinking. The look on Jason's face sent his stomach into spiraling knots.

"You're saying that because pa died instantly in that accident, half the ranch went to ma, even though she was dying, too. And now her half of the ranch is going to this mysterious Evangeline Peyton Howell."

Hale cleared his throat and nodded.

Kyle whistled in shock, and Jason's face crumpled into a blank wall of disbelief.

Chapter 6

Tyler's conviction that he should have stayed in New Orleans hadn't changed by the time the steamboat reached Houston. He'd managed to secure a second stateroom on their new boat to prevent the certain insanity of staying any longer than necessary in Evie's company, but there was an inevitability to their continuing encounters that made Tyler curse the fates.

Since returning from the federal prison where he had languished the better part of the war, Tyler had made it a point not to get involved with any so-called "good" women. The ties that bind weren't for him. For seventeen years he had been tied up in a cocoon of love that had burst with the onslaught of war. Now he was free and damned certain to stay that way.

But he had never anticipated a free spirit like Evie Peyton. In a manner of speaking, she was the kind of innocent miss he avoided at all cost. When he had taken up the gambling life, he had left behind the genteel society of his youth. He meant to take no part in the polite world of courtship that kind of innocence entailed. He wanted his women hot and willing and with no strings attached. Evie Peyton, however, seemed to fall into some category between the two.

In the constant company of her or her brother, he couldn't indulge himself as he would like in the charms of the other women on the boat. And with Evie constantly in sight, her big eyes flashing laughter, her slender waist wagging that enticing tail, Tyler couldn't find the urge to deliberately stake out another woman. He didn't look too closely into his reasoning. He just assumed the momentary aberration would disappear the minute he dumped Evie and her brother in Mineral Springs.

As Tyler stared now at the garrulous man in bowler hat in the Houston stagecoach office, he had to wonder if he would ever get rid of the troublesome pair.

"Only one stage a week? What am I supposed to do, put the lady and her trunks on a mule and send them in the general direction of Mineral Springs?"

The ticket seller shrugged. "There's still two seats available on tomorrow's stage. You could send her ahead with her brother and take the next one yourself the following week."

If only he could. The temptation was strong. He could just put them on the stage and wave his hat good-bye and walk away. What could happen to them on a stage going to nowhere?

Contemplating all the things that had happened between here and Natchez, Tyler cursed. Evie would no doubt convince the driver to allow her to ride on top, and they would have red Indians chasing after them to capture a piece of her tempting scalp. He had never disliked being in the company of an attractive woman before, but most attractive women didn't have the propensity for trouble that Evie Peyton did. The combination was deadly. He almost wished she had a hooked nose and a pointed chin.

Allowing Evie and Daniel to travel alone just wouldn't sit well with his conscience. Besides, Tyler was quite convinced they wouldn't let him out of their sight until they reached their destination. There was a certain tenacity in their innocence that he respected.

The alternative of waiting a week for the next stage, however, was equally reprehensible. Another week and he would no doubt either bed the brat or strangle her.

Leaning over the counter, Tyler began counting out his money. "Give me the two tickets for tomorrow and tell me where I can find the nearest livery."

Daniel and Evie took the news of his purchase of two horses with questioning looks but no overt objections. Tyler charged them only one half the cost of the horses, but they didn't even seem aware of that. They were damned babes in the wood and lucky he'd found them instead of someone less scrupulous, but he wasn't feeling particularly lucky when they set out the next day.

A wagon had to be hired to haul Evie's numerous trunks since the coach could only carry limited baggage. She had taken that news with casual aplomb, selecting her most important valise as the one she wished with her and admonishing the wagon driver to be careful with her mothers' "best linens" destined for her "sister" in Mineral Springs. The wagon driver might buy that story, but Tyler had seen mountains of feminine fripperies in some of those trunks, and although at least one carried linens, the others weighed too much to be either clothing or sheets. He was secretly harboring the gold bullion theory himself.

Both Evie and Daniel were bubbling with excitement as the stage set out, but Tyler and Benjamin looked forward to the dusty trip following the stage with a great deal less pleasure. By mid-morning the hot Texas sun had confirmed their expectations, and they were covering the bottom half of their faces with the crude neckerchiefs they had bought back in Houston to keep the dust out of their lungs.

Although out of the sun inside the stage, Evie was feeling the heat just the same. The leather shades on the windows kept out the light, but kept out any breath of fresh air, also. Since the stout man across from her was busily puffing on a cigar while inspecting her bodice waist with unnatural interest, Evie felt certain the queasiness in her stomach would soon lead to further unpleasantness.

"Sir, if you wouldn't mind, I am feeling quite faint. The smoke is making my head spin. If you could just put out the cigar until the air clears..."

He tapped the cigar end out the window and blew a long spiral of smoke into the thickened air. "You'd best get accustomed to it, little lady. We Texans like our tobacco and whiskey strong. If you don't like it, just go back where you came from."

So saying, he drew out a flask of whiskey and began to imbibe.

The sales drummer next to him looked disgusted, but half the other man's girth and height, he didn't interfere. The faded farmer's wife in the other corner looked resigned, and the child across from her was asleep. That left only Daniel and Evie to protest the man's rudeness.

They exchanged glances. What would Pecos Martin do in a situation like this? Daniel gripped his gold-knobbed cane in the middle and grabbed for the strap overhead as the stage swayed when it hit a rut. The cane swayed with him.

The flask the fat man had been about to cap encountered the cane and flew out of his hand, spewing its contents over his lap until the entire interior reeked of whiskey. Even the farmer's wife watched with a degree of interest as the man shrieked his rage, until the child woke and began to cry.

"So sorry, sir. It's this deuced leg of mine. Doesn't support me even sitting. I'll buy you a fresh supply in the nearest town." Daniel apologetically produced his large handkerchief to dab at the damage.

Evie sweetly reached over and removed the cigar from the astonished man's hand, flinging it out the window. "You'll catch fire if that falls on your trousers. Why, I had a neighbor once who spilled some brandy all over his best jacket, and he was so surprised that he dropped his cigar, and before anyone knew it, he went up in flames. Rather like a dessert flambé, only not so amusing."

The slender drummer chuckled, and the child quit wailing as it watched the fat man slowly turn purple. Blithely ignoring his fury, Evie pulled back the shade and waved at the two men riding alongside the lumbering stagecoach. Benjamin tipped his hat, but Tyler pretended to ignore her. The distraction worked, however, and Evie smiled as the fat man took a look at the rifle tied to Tyler's saddle and held his tongue.