A Texan's Honor (16 page)

“This isn't the farthest part of the ranch from the house,” Emily said. “The boys should have been
through this area at least a couple of times.” Lonnie should have told her, but she felt guilty she hadn't made it her business to find out. She wasn't doing a very good job of running the ranch for her father.

“Knowing rustlers are out there has the boys a mite nervous,” Lonnie said. “They don't like riding out except in pairs. That cuts down on the amount of ground we can cover.”

“Why haven't you told me any of this?” Emily demanded.

“I didn't want to worry you, not with you already upset about your father. And now”—he glanced over at Bret, an angry look in his eyes—“having to put up with him trying to convince you to sell up and move to Boston.”

“You should have told me,” she said, angry that Lonnie had taken such a decision on himself. “This is my ranch—or it will be—and I have a right to know everything that happens on it.”

“I was only trying to help.”

“Next time, help by making sure you inform me of anything out of the ordinary. Do you think we ought to look for more evidence?” she asked Bret. She was aware that turning to Bret made Lonnie look bad, but she was too angry to care.

“I'd like to see if they're rebranding any older stock,” Bret said.

They spent the rest of the afternoon riding over as much ground as possible but found that only spring calves had been branded.

“Calves are relatively easy to brand,” Bret said. “Two men could do it by themselves.”

“Do you think only two men are involved?” Emily asked.

“I'd say you have a conspirator on your crew, one
who tells the rustlers where the men are going to be at any given time.”

“Are you accusing me?” Lonnie's face turned red, his mouth tight with anger.

“Of course not,” Emily said. “Nobody would accuse you.”

“I'm not accusing anyone,” Bret said, “only making an educated guess.”

Emily would have sworn all the cowhands were honest and trustworthy, but it was impossible to ignore Bret's reasoning. The rustlers
had
to know where the cowhands would be in order to have avoided notice for as much as a month. “I don't understand,” she said, thinking aloud, “why none of the boys noticed those brands.”

“They probably did,” Lonnie said, “but cows get mixed up all the time. We worked at least a dozen different brands during roundup. Your father owns four himself.”

“I know that,” Emily said, “but cows don't accept the wrong calf.”

Emily felt guilty she hadn't lived up to her responsibilities. She'd been telling her father not to worry, that she and Lonnie were taking care of everything. And it turns out that neither one of them had had any idea their calves were being rebranded. Worse yet, she had no idea who owned the brand or who was doing the branding.

Lonnie was uncharacteristically quiet, probably from embarrassment. He'd been very vocal in his opinion that Bret didn't know enough to get out of his own way. Yet it had been Bret who'd noticed that a cow and her calf had different brands—and that the second brand was an easy alteration of her father's brand.

“I hate to do this,” she said to Lonnie, “but I want all the men in the saddle from dawn to dusk until we find out who's behind this. After we talk to Dad, I'll send one of them to Fort Worth to look for more help.”

“I ought to do the hiring,” Lonnie said.

“I need you here. You're the only one who knows the whole ranch as well as Charlie used to.”

Emily felt a little guilty wishing Charlie were still their foreman, but she'd grown up depending on him and Ida. Nothing had felt the same since they'd left. She had to depend on herself now, but that wasn't as frightening as it had once been. And whether or not she wanted to admit it, Bret's being here was part of the reason. She couldn't let herself start to depend on him. He wouldn't be here very long.

But she was beginning to wish he would be.

“Do you want any more stew?” Bertie asked.

“If you don't stop stuffing me so full every time I sit down to the table, they'll have to carry me back to Fort Worth in a wagon,” Bret said.

“Then you shouldn't be going to Fort Worth,” Bertie said. “It's nasty and smelly. No place for a gentleman like you.”

Bret was eating dinner in the kitchen. They'd arrived back at the ranch to find Sam so sick they postponed mentioning the false brands. Emily hadn't left her father's side all evening. Lonnie had called the men together to tell them what they'd found and to lay out a new schedule. Bret had suggested they work in pairs and take enough provisions to stay out for as much as a week. Lonnie hadn't liked his suggestion, but Emily had endorsed it immediately. According to Bertie, the hands had, too. They were angry that re-branding had been going on under their noses and
were anxious to recover their self-respect by putting an end to it.

“I live in Boston, not Fort Worth,” Bret told Bertie.

“A man like you has got no business in a place like that.” Bertie was so busy removing bowls and platters from the table, Bret couldn't see her expression. “You ought to have a ranch of your own.”

Bret nearly choked on his coffee. “What makes you think I want a ranch, or that I'd be able to manage one?”

“The cowhands haven't stopped talking about the way you handled that piebald,” Bertie said, still too busy to look at him. “Now you're the one who discovered the rustling.” She turned to face him. “Sounds to me like you know more than you're letting on.” She turned away. “Besides, who wants to live in a place like Boston? It's full of nasty, pushy people.”

Bret chuckled. “At least they don't wear guns and steal cows.”

“They have lawyers who steal people's money.”

Bret's smile vanished. “How do you know about Boston?”

“My father couldn't find work after the Yankees destroyed everything they could lay their hands on, so we moved there after the war. I didn't like it so I came back here. I was lucky Mr. Abercrombie was looking for a cook and housekeeper.” She topped off Bret's coffee. “It was like breathing fresh air when I crossed into Texas. I knew I'd come home.”

It chilled Bret to realize he'd felt exactly the same way. How could he feel like that when his future was committed to Abbott & Abercrombie? He'd devoted the last six years to making a place for himself in Boston, in the company, in the Abbott family. That future was what he'd always wanted. It was what had
forced him out of Texas, caused him to leave a family that loved him, a family that accepted him wholeheartedly even though he'd tried to hold back, even though he'd kept telling himself it was only a substitute until he could go back to his
real
family.

The only thing was, the longer he was in Texas, the more he felt like he belonged here.

In the beginning, he'd hated everything about Jake's ranch: horses, cows, the dirt. He hated the guilt he felt because he didn't deserve the love Isabelle gave so freely, the acceptance Jake offered without question, the support the other boys gave him even when he was surly and mean-spirited. But most of all he hated the fact that he couldn't do anything as well as the other boys. Bitter anger and a fierce desire to prove he was just as good as anybody from Texas drove him to work doubly hard to learn to be a good cowhand. He hated the work, thought the job was demeaning, but he was determined he was going to be as good as anybody else.

Of course he wasn't. Sean was bigger, Zeke was stronger, Hawk was a better rider, Luke was better with a gun, Chet was . . . in the end it didn't matter. He accepted he couldn't be the best at everything when he realized he was good enough at everything necessary to his job. He'd enjoyed his competency, the faith Jake and the other boys put in him, the respect everyone gave him. Before he left, everyone said he'd earned his place. Even more important, he knew it himself.

He'd conquered Texas. He would conquer Boston and Abbott & Abercrombie, too.

“Miss Emily could use some help from a man like you right about now.”

Bertie's voice jerked him out of his brown study. “If
she needs more than her father and Lonnie, I'm sure Charlie and Ida would be glad to help.”

“It was a sad day when they left,” Bertie said. “A huge mistake, too. Big ranchers don't like little ranchers setting up in the middle of their land. Whenever there's rustling, it's the little ranchers they think are doing it.”

Bret had seen it before. The small rancher was threatened or beaten, his property burned or torn down, herds scattered or butchered, water holes poisoned, dams destroyed, families terrorized. He hoped nothing like that would happen to Charlie's family.

“Has there been much rustling?” Bret asked.

“There's always rustling. The Yankees don't have a lock on thieves.”

“That's all the more reason for Emily to sell the ranch and move to Boston. Her money will be safer in a bank.”

Bertie shook a big wooden spoon at him. “Neither Miss Emily nor her money will be safe unless you marry her.”

Bret choked, spraying coffee all over the table. Bertie wiped it up without batting an eyelash.

“No point in acting surprised,” she said. “I know you like her. I can see it in the way you look at her.”

Bret struggled to recover his composure. “Emily doesn't like me and refuses to move to Boston. Seems to me that puts it out of the question.”

Bertie put her hands on her hips and gave him the kind of look she'd give a particularly dumb child. “Anybody with one eye and half sense can see she likes you just as much. And she needs a man who won't take advantage of her.”

“I'm sure she can find—”

“How's she going to find anybody stuck out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“That's just why she should go to Boston.”

Bertie harrumphed and favored Bret with a frown. “You belong in Texas, and Miss Emily needs a husband to take care of her. Seems to me like that would make everybody happy.”

Feeling more than a little stunned, Bret laughed and said, “My Uncle Silas and Cousin Joseph wouldn't agree with that at all.”

“Is he the same Joseph who's always writing Miss Emily?”

“Does he write often?” Bret knew that Joseph and Emily had exchanged a few letters over the years, but nothing that would qualify as
always writing
. He wondered how much his uncle had been keeping from him.

“This last year there's been a letter from him every time the mail comes from Fort Worth. Miss Emily brought one back this time, too.”

Emily hadn't mentioned that. Bret was certain Joseph had told her why he was coming. Since that wasn't a secret, why hadn't she said anything about the letter?

“I don't like that man.” Bertie shook an accusing finger at Bret. “Miss Emily read me some of his letters. He's encouraging her to do what she wants, not to be swayed by other people's arguments. Since her father and his father both want Emily to go to Boston, that doesn't sound right to me. He told her not to trust you, either.”

Bret would have assumed that if Joseph was writing Emily, it would be to encourage her to come to Boston. He'd also be doing everything he could to look good in her eyes. It was possible that Bertie had misunderstood what Joseph wrote, but he doubted it.
From his limited experience, Bertie was a smart woman who saw right to the heart of things.

“Do you think I'm trustworthy?” Bret asked.

Bertie favored him with another of those hands-on-hips, you-poor-dumb-thing looks. “Do you think I'd be encouraging you to make up to Emily if I didn't?”

“Is that what you're doing?”

“You're acting like a lawyer who's afraid to say anything for fear somebody will expect him to mean it. I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't know you and Emily liked each other. And I wouldn't have said anything even then if her pa wasn't so close to dying. With the rustling and rebranding going on, it's as clear as the nose on your face she's got to marry somebody. I don't know as much about you as I'd like, but you've got to be better than Lonnie or that cousin of yours.” She favored Bret with a fierce glare. “And if you weren't, I'd make sure you changed your ways or was awful sorry you hadn't.”

“I wouldn't be living up to that trust if I tried to take advantage of Emily while she was in a difficult situation.”

“How is telling a woman you love her taking advantage?”

Good question.

“Telling Emily I love her would be a lie. I do like her, but I barely know her. If I were to decide I wanted to marry her, I would be subverting the reason my uncle sent me here. I'd have to let everybody know my goals had changed.”

“Would you do that if you loved her?”

Bret studied the night sky glittering with thousands of stars. After so many years in Boston, it was easy to forget the Texas sky seemed endless, especially at night. Sam Abercrombie had built his house on a flat-topped hill, and the sky seemed to enclose Bret on all sides. The coolness of the night air helped to dissipate some of the heat Bertie's comments had generated. He'd managed to avoid answering her last question, but he couldn't avoid answering it for himself.

He wasn't in love with Emily. He was attracted to her and liked her, but that wasn't love. Any man who married her would have to love her enough to be very patient and understanding. Emily was a lot like Isabelle—she had a mind of her own. Even though Isabelle and Jake squabbled, they shared the same vision. Emily's vision could hardly have been further from what Bret wanted, what he'd worked so hard for the last six years to attain. It wasn't out of the question that he could love Emily. It was just that he didn't. Considering everything, that was for the best.