Titans (19 page)

A
day later, Samantha pushed open the screened door of the Trail Head to hear Wayne say to her father, “Are you sure you want to go, Neal? Your backside has got to be aching from all that saddle sittin' you've been doing the last couple of months. Send me in your place. I can go and come by train and be back within a few days. Take a breather and enjoy life.”

“He's right, Neal. Let's you and me go fishin',” Grizzly said. “I hear they're bitin' like crazy up at the north branch. Mornin', Samantha.”

It was early morning, but the ranch hands had already set off for the day, and the dining room of the Trail Head was empty but for her father, Wayne, and Grizzly who sat at the head table with hands around coffee cups. Her father's and Wayne's backs were to the door, and only Grizzly had seen her come in. Neal whirled around. Samantha was staring at him in surprise. “You're going somewhere, Daddy?” she asked.

Neal resumed his position. “Yes, honey,” he said, bringing the cup to his lips. “To La Paloma. I need to check on the boys, see how things are going up there.”

Samantha walked around the table to face him. “When?”

Neal blew into the steam of his coffee. “I'm on my way in a few minutes. I was going to tell you.”

“When? As you were pulling out?”

“When you came over for breakfast after I'd left instructions with my number one man here.” Neal nodded to Wayne.

There was a time when those instructions would have been given to her. “How long will you be gone?”

“A week or so.” Her father seemed to have trouble meeting her eyes, and the other men, caught in the uncomfortable exchange, concentrated on their coffee cups.

“Does Mother know?”

Taking a last swig from his cup, Neal got to his feet and said, “I called her yesterday from the Triple S. I gave her your love.”

“I'm sure she would have been glad to see you before you left, Daddy. It's been a while since you've been in Fort Worth, almost two weeks, in fact.”

Neal took down his hat from a row of pegs and positioned it on his head with a hard swipe of its brim. “Well, I've had a lot on my mind,” he said. “She wouldn't have been happy to hear about it.”

Warmth flooded Samantha's cheeks. It was the closest her father had ever nudged to the trouble that lay between them. Before that day in the kitchen, he would have shared every worry and concern disturbing his sleep with her.
Let
'
s talk about it!
she longed to shout at him, then remembered the presence of Grizzly.

“You boys and girl take care of things while I'm gone,” Neal said, and paused a second, holding Samantha in his gaze as if caught in sudden thought, then suddenly strode to her and embraced her. He kissed her temple and said, “I love you, daughter,” then abruptly released her and spun toward the screened door.

Its slam hung in the silence along with the clatter of pots and pans and Spanish jabber coming from the kitchen, where Grizzly's crew was preparing the midday meal. Samantha stood unmoving, her throat locking as she heard her father's big paint carry him away. Tears burned her eyes. Wayne tipped back his chair on two legs and folded his arms over his chest. “All right, MG, this has been goin' on long enough. Time to tell us what's what. We've noticed a definite change in your pa these last months and not for the better, either. He's been grumpy as hell.”

Grizzly gave her a long, pained look.
Is it what I think it is?

Samantha answered with an imperceptible shake of her head. As far as she'd been able to observe—and she'd been looking—there had been no change in Neal Gordon's manner toward Grizzly, so for the time being he was safe. Seemingly satisfied with her silent assurance, Grizzly removed a battered sign from under the serving counter that read
KITCHEN CLOSED
.
IF YORE HUNGRY, EAT GRASS.
He hung the sign on a nail driven into the outside of the inner door, closed it, and threw the lock. Coming back, he poured Samantha a steaming cup of coffee and said, “Sit down and loosen your throat on that, pretty girl, and talk to us.”

Samantha wrapped her fingers around the hot coffee cup. Oh, if only she could. “It's a private matter,” she said.

Wayne said, “We don't mean to pry—”

“Hell yes, we do!” Grizzly interrupted hotly. “So spill it, Mornin' Glory. What in the name of God's creation is going on between you and your pa!”

“Maybe we can help,” Wayne said soothingly. “Grizzly and me probably know your pa better'n you do, because we've known him longer, and we're men. Men can't express their pain. We go into deep, dark wells and stay there until we figure out what to do about what's bothering us. That's where your daddy is now—in a deep, dark well—alone. Care to tell us why?”

Samantha searched for an answer that would satisfy them and grasped the first that popped into her head, a substitute not too distant from the truth, one prompted by Sloan, never far from her thoughts. “I've disappointed Daddy,” she said, “and he's having a hard time forgiving me.”

Wayne's arms came apart. He lowered the chair legs to the floor. “Now, how could you possibly disappoint your pa?”

Samantha said, “He wanted me to set my cap for Sloan Singleton because he judges him the perfect husband for me and son-in-law for him. Unbeknown to Sloan and me, ever since we were children, my father and Seth had hopes that we… would marry and combine our spreads, but Sloan and I have… had a falling-out that has… put an end to that hope.”

Wayne exchanged a look of understanding with Grizzly. “That explains why we haven't seen anything of Sloan for the past two months.”

Grizzly nodded, and Samantha continued. “Now Daddy is worried Sloan will marry Anne Rutherford, and I will end up an old maid and produce no heir to the ranch.”

Grizzly's fleshy lips twisted, and he glanced around as if looking for a place to spit and regretted his decision to forbid spittoons in the dining hall. “Anne Rutherford, a
banker
'
s
daughter!” he snorted. “What a rancher's wife
she'll
make!”

“What Daddy fails to see is that I'm not at fault that his dream did not pan out. Sloan has no romantic interest in me. He's apparently in love with Anne Rutherford.” Samantha resisted a visible breath of relief. They were buying her story, and she could see that Grizzly was greatly comforted and relieved by it. Her explanation
could
account for her father's strange withdrawal from her and grumpiness toward his men, if a little weak under examination. Neal Gordon
was
worried that she would never marry and leave an heir to Las Tres Lomas. What man was on the horizon with whom she would possibly consider spending the rest of her life?

Wayne said gently, “And what about your romantic interest in Sloan?”

She blushed at Wayne's knowing look. Good God! Could everyone but Sloan see how she felt about him? “What does it matter, since it doesn't matter to him?” she retorted. She shoved away from the table and stood. “You can take down the sign, Grizzly. There's nothing more to discuss. I can't fix what was never meant to be. In time, Daddy will accept that.”

“Well, to hurry things along,” Wayne said, “I'd round up that steer of yours and repaint his horns. Neal noticed they were faded the other day when we went after that mountain lion.”

“Do we have any more of the red paint?”

“In the tack barn, last I noticed,” Wayne said.

“I'm on my way to Windy Bluff,” Samantha said.

N
eal headed north, his throat throbbing at the last look he'd seen in the eyes of his little girl. He was leaving her hurt and bewildered, but there was no way around it. All would be explained in due time, and then she would understand the why and wherefore of his behavior these last two months and maybe forgive him. No telling what she'd made of the time and distance he'd put between them, but he'd needed space to figure out what to do, and he'd finally settled on a course of action. It hadn't been easy. At fifty-five, he thought he was full grown, but Neal supposed a man never really did finish with the job of growing up. He reached a certain level of adulthood, knew who he was and what he was about, and then something came along to jar him out of his state of inalterability and forced him to a new plane of maturity or, Neal liked to think, to a more exalted height—like the unexpected situation where a man must put the welfare of someone he loved above his own, no matter the personal pain.

So he was off this morning with his heart aching on the longest, most painful journey of his life. Today was Tuesday. Neal figured that at an ambling gait of four to five miles per hour, taking into account road conditions, the terrain, some deep creeks to ford, and stops for the night, he could make around thirty miles a day, a rate that should put him into Gainesville in less than three days. He'd get a room there somewhere or sleep under the stars. The Holloway farm should not be hard to find, and he could accomplish his mission in no more than a day, then spend the rest of his time at La Paloma, if not with his original purpose in mind. Why would he wish for another ranch when Las Tres Lomas might not be preserved for future generations? That concern loomed almost as large and devastating as the possibility of losing Samantha to another family with their own dreams for her. Night after night these past sleepless months, ever since reading Mrs. Brewster's letter, he'd conjured up scenarios that made him long to yank his imaginings right out of his head. He pictured Samantha unable to resist the biological pull of her real family. He visualized her embracing her brother—a twin!—and other siblings, if they existed, and imagined her yearning to live among them. He felt the pain of her loyalties split until finally she came to him, tears streaming, to say in a choked voice that ranching was not for her. She had gone along with his plans to someday take over the ranch because of all she owed him and Estelle.

He envisioned his wife shattered with grief and himself growing embittered and angry as he aged, drying up like the tail of the mountain lion strung from the flagpole. He couldn't even be comforted by his original plan before Samantha came along for Estelle to sell the ranch to Sloan after his death, not if he married that banker's daughter. How could that vain twit of a city girl ever feel the appropriate affection for his home that Las Tres Lomas deserved?

You always imagine the worst, Neal
, Estelle often accused him in his preparation for disaster, whether or not it came, but he could not shake the vision of their daughter leaving them, moving away, marrying someone not of their kind. The image was even worse than the mental picture of losing her to Lasell Seminary for Young Women in Massachusetts.
Have faith in Samantha's love for us and the ranch, Neal,
Estelle would advise should he tell her of his despair.
She would never desert us.

But in his wrestles with his nature, conscience, and feelings during the past dark months, he'd reached the conclusion that it was not Samantha's love for Neal and Estelle Gordon that mattered. It was their love for her, and so he'd made his decision. He'd thought of sharing it with Estelle to prepare her for the darkness to come, but as was his way, he'd reconsidered laying down his hand. The cards might play in their favor and Estelle be spared the pain he was now enduring.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
, the Good Word instructed, and by it he would abide.

He was on his way now to the Holloway farm to meet Millicent Holloway, Samantha's mother, and her husband, Leon, should he still be alive. He would identify himself as the adoptive father of the daughter they had given away, but he would not volunteer the location of Samantha's whereabouts or a shred of information about her until he had an answer to the question he had come to ask: Did they wish to reunite with their daughter? An eager spark in the eyes, a flare of joy upon their faces—or the absence of them—would tell him immediately if he should return home to give Samantha the news her search was over or leave her never to learn of the existence of the mother or couple who once again had foresworn her. Neal would not have his daughter rejected twice.

After leaving Grizzly and Wayne, Samantha planned to ride out to Windy Bluff and herd Saved back to give his horns a refresher coat of paint, but an unexpected visitor showed up. Silbia met her as she entered the Main House to pick up her wide-brimmed hat for the ride to one of the farthest points of the ranch. “I was just about to send one of the girls to get you, Miss Sam. You got somebody waiting for you in the great room.”

“Who?”

“Miss Anne Rutherford.”

Samantha heard the name in surprise. Why on earth would Anne Rutherford come to call on her? She'd seen much of the girl, Sloan at her side, at the prenuptial socials held for Todd Baker and Ginny Warner in the last two months, their wedding the last occasion where they'd met, but only to exchange pleasantries. She and Anne, though they shared the same lifelong social acquaintances, had never been friends. Samantha thought that not surprising, since they had no interests in common.

“Anne! What a surprise!” she greeted her visitor, who appeared to be tenuously seated on the edge of a lounge chair as if fearful it might swallow her. “What brings you out here to Las Tres Lomas?”

“Sloan Singleton,” Anne said. She rose quickly but gracefully at Samantha's entrance, a lithe figure in a filmy spring frock, its pastel flowers a complement to her ivory skin and deep black hair.

Samantha checked her move to welcome Anne with a friendly embrace. “Sloan?”

“I am sure the reason for my visit will remain confidential, between only us, Samantha. I had no one else to come to, and I thought you could be of help. You know Sloan better than anybody other than his sisters, and they don't like me. I'm aware that they don't want him to marry me.”

Samantha stood speechless. Anne's blatant declaration—and that she would make it to her, given the girl's known consideration of every word she uttered and to whom she delivered it—genuinely shocked her. Samantha sat down and with a hand invited Anne to do the same. “Why not?”

Anne shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “Oh, the typical thing. They're jealous old-maid biddies who don't want to share the house they've ruled over for years, but I don't believe Sloan would listen to them. Something else seems to have… come between us in the last several months. Sloan has changed, and I don't know why. I thought maybe you could tell me. He confides in you. Don't deny it. I don't mind. Truly, I don't. Has he said anything about… us?”

For a moment, Samantha was too stumped by Anne's brazenness to reply. “No, nothing, but he would not confide such personal matters to me,” she answered. “When we were children, yes, but not now.”

Doubt clouded the irises of Anne's eyes, the color of dark sapphires. “The change set in around the middle of April—on Saturday, April fourteenth, as a matter of fact,” she said. “I know because I keep a daily diary. It began then. Sloan was to have telephoned to set a time to call on me that evening, but he didn't. Nor did I see him the next day. We usually spend Sundays together. I heard nothing from him for an entire week and sent a note of concern out to the Triple S. Who knows but that one of his sisters intercepted it, but he did not respond. When he finally turned up, he gave the excuse that he'd been on a hunt after a mountain lion that Saturday and busy at the ranch afterward, but I could tell it was something else. Do you recall anything else that happened involving Sloan on April fourteenth?”

Samantha was not likely to forget the date, a pivotal day in her life. It was the day her father had learned of her betrayal and she'd set Sloan straight about his “brother” role, but how could those personal and private events relate in any way to Sloan's feelings for Anne? “I can verify that Sloan did go on a hunt that Saturday,” she said, “and you should believe him when he says he was busy at the ranch. I've never known Sloan to lie, and the spring months on a ranch are our most demanding. Other than that, I fear I can't be of more help, Anne. Are you sure you're not imagining Sloan's change toward you?”

“Oh,
Samantha
!” Anne hopped up, the filmy skirt of her dress swirling around her. She strolled off a distance, latching her hands together, and spoke as if to an unseen audience in the room. “You've… never… well, you've never had experience with men, so you wouldn't know the signs that tell a woman her lover's affections have cooled…”

“Lovers,” Samantha repeated, a sharp pain flitting through her and her face stinging from resentment at Anne's condescending assumption of her sexual naïveté.

Anne swung around in a froth of batiste and lace. “Yes,
lovers
!” she cried. “Or at least as close to lovers as one can be without… marriage. One does not have to have physical intimacy to become lovers.”

“Oh,” Samantha said in a tone implying she'd been rightly enlightened. She rose. The girl was imagining things. Anne Rutherford was exquisite. How could any man, for all her insipidity, resist her? Samantha had not noticed Sloan giving his soon-to-be-betrothed a lack of attention at the social gatherings in honor of Todd and Ginny's nuptials. It could be that all the wedding folderol had made him, soon to be a groom, nervous at the permanence of marriage. But she would not give Anne Rutherford the comfort of that possibility.

Her guest seemed unwilling to take Samantha's hint that the visit was over. Anne stepped farther into the cavernous space of the great room and swept her gaze over the thick-beamed ceiling, the wood-paneled walls, and the wide oak staircase to the landing that ran the circumference of the second story. Samantha's resentment flared. Anne was thinking of the ranch house of the Triple S, whose interior was built on similar lines. She stared at the girl in some shock. Anne Rutherford was purportedly the classic model of social correctness. Yet she stood in the heart of Samantha's home, swiping her critical gaze over its layout and furnishings like a dust rag, ignoring the affront her shameless inspection might be to her hostess.

“I could get used to a place like this,” Anne said.

“It might take some doing.” Samantha spoke through a gritted-teeth smile. The Rutherford residence in Fort Worth was a white, palatial edifice built in homage to her family's money and social prominence.

“Not if Sloan was part of the adjustment.” Anne turned to see Samantha's tight expression and gave her a faint smile. “Forgive me. I'm not myself today.”

“I can see that.”

A handkerchief materialized from the fluffy folds of Anne's sleeves, and she dabbed at the tears pooling in her jeweled eyes. “It's just that I'm beside myself with worry over this situation. By now I thought Sloan would have proposed, and I'd have a ring on my finger. Everybody expects us to marry. How can I face people if… we don't? What would the insult do to me and my family?”

Samantha's hackles rose further. Ah, so the shame and jeers of society were Anne's real concern. “Do you love Sloan?” she asked.

The sapphire eyes scoffed at the question. “Why, of course I do. Why would I spend so much time with a man I don't love?”

“I'm afraid I can't answer that, since I've had so little experience with men,” Samantha said. “I'd offer coffee and rolls, but I'm running the ranch alone since Daddy has taken off to our cattle camp in Cooke County.”

This time Anne took the hint and reached for her parasol, the handkerchief tucked back into the sleeve of her dress. “I must get back anyway before the heat sets in, and I never eat between meals.” She seemed suddenly to remember her manners. “I hope I didn't interfere with”—she whisked a sapphire inspection over Samantha's work attire—“whatever you were doing.”

“I was happy for the interruption,” Samantha said, smiling. “We're castrating the young steers this morning.”

Anne's face blanched. “I'll see myself out,” she said.