A Texan's Honor (29 page)

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I mean, why didn't you tell me you were coming?”

Joseph stepped forward, took her hand, and kissed it. She couldn't resist throwing an amused glance at Bret, who looked far from amused.

“I couldn't stop worrying about you all alone with your father so ill,” Joseph said. “I decided to see if I could be of any help. I remember you very fondly from your visit several years ago, but I'm sure you know that from the letters I've written.”

It was obvious from Bret's frown that he hadn't known anything about the letters. “I've enjoyed your letters,” Emily said, “but they haven't made me like my Abercrombie family any better.”

“I'm sure it takes a while for someone who's grown up in Texas to get used to our ways,” Joseph said. “Everything is so new and
rough
down here, while Boston is more than two hundred and fifty years old. I'm sure Bret would tell you we're set in our ways.”

“He's been too busy helping me with my horses and finding a couple of rustlers to have much time to talk. Sit down. You must be tired after your journey. I'm surprised you didn't stop somewhere and ride in tomorrow.”

“After spending one night in a household of boisterous children, I'd have ridden 'til morning before being subjected to the same again.” He turned to Bret. “Apparently, you got along fine with all the children.”

“You must have stayed with Ida and Charlie Wren,” Emily exclaimed. “He used to be our foreman.”

“I can see why you replaced him,” Joseph said as he eased himself reluctantly into a chair covered by a buffalo hide. “The man is thoroughly unpleasant.”

“We didn't
replace
him.” Joseph's criticism annoyed Emily. “He left to start his own ranch.”

“I'm sure I wish him luck.” Joseph turned a jaundiced eye to Bret. “So you've been playing the cowboy? You can take the man out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the man.”

Emily liked Joseph, but she didn't like the way he said that. It was clear he thought the association with Texas lowered Bret's status. “With Dad being sick and our foreman helping the rustlers, I don't know what I would have done without him.”

Joseph's reaction was so abrupt, so startled, Emily
would have thought it was
his
cows that were being rebranded. “I can't believe your foreman was helping the rustlers.”

“I couldn't, either, but the rustlers said he hired them. We've got them locked up in the barn waiting for Lonnie to show up.”

“You didn't catch Lonnie?”

“He disappeared. None of the boys knows where he could have gone.”

Joseph's concern was evident. “I'm more glad than ever I decided to come. It must have been terrible to find you had a traitor in your midst.”

“I am anxious to ask Lonnie why he did it.”

“I don't imagine you'll ever see him again,” Joseph said. “Why would he come back when he knows you'd arrest him?”

“Everything he owns is here.”

“He will probably come get his belongings at night,” Bret said. “I expect the hands will look the other way. Texans like to give people a second chance. That's what coming West is all about. It's why your father left Boston.”

“Sam Abercrombie left Boston because—” Joseph broke off as suddenly as he'd started. His gaze swung from Bret to Emily, who was looking at him with narrowed eyes. “He left because he wanted excitement,” Joseph finished up.

“Dad says he left Boston because it was full of dull, narrow-minded people who preferred living in the past and punishing anybody who didn't agree with them,” Emily said. “He said his relatives were the most dull and narrow-minded of all.”

“Bostonians are proud of their past,” Joseph said. “At least we don't have savage Indians roaming around. I thought I saw one when I rode up.”

“It was probably Hawk,” Bret said. “He's one of my adopted brothers.”

Joseph looked stunned. “He was talking to a black man.”

“Zeke. He's another of my brothers,” Bret explained.

“I didn't know you had such an interesting family,” Joseph said.

“You mean Bret's been in Boston for six years and you didn't know about his brothers? I knew in a week.”

Joseph looked a little uncomfortable. “Bret and I don't see that much of each other. We work in different parts of the company.”

“But you're cousins. You must see him all the time outside of work.”

“I work late a lot,” Bret said. “Besides, I can't afford to do the things Joseph and his friends do.”

“Surely he takes you along.”

Joseph squirmed in his chair, looking more uncomfortable than ever.

Bret turned to him. “You must be tired. It's a long ride from Charlie's ranch.”

“I'm sorry,” Emily said, getting up. “Let me show you to a room.”

“I can do that,” Bret said. “I'm sure you want to check on your father.”

“Thanks,” Emily said. “I'll see you in the morning,” she said to Joseph. “You can sleep as late as you want. Just tell Bertie what you'd like for breakfast. Now you can satisfy your curiosity about how exciting it is to live on a ranch in Texas.”

Her father seemed to be sleeping peacefully when she checked on him, but she didn't like the way he looked. His skin was almost gray and his breath was shallow and labored. The trouble with his heart must have been more serious than either of them had
thought. She'd make sure he got as much rest as possible for the next day or so.

She sat down in the chair next to his bed, took his hand in hers. This change in their roles seemed strange and uncomfortable to her. Until a few months ago he was the strong, invincible man who'd always been the center of her life. He'd taught her to ride, to love being outside, to love Texas. Her mother had said she should have been a boy. Neither Emily nor her father saw anything strange in a girl loving to ride, training horses, being happy to live on a ranch a two-day ride from the nearest city. They'd camped out, helped with roundups, branding, and doctoring. She'd even helped deliver a foal once.

All of this had made her father's insistence that she go to Boston a surprise. After all the years he'd spent instilling in her his love of freedom from Eastern society's rules and regulations, why would he think she'd leave the ranch? She knew he'd only agreed to the compromise of Galveston because Bret had promised to go with her.

She wished she could tell him how she felt about Bret. Maybe her father could tell her how to convince him to stay in Texas. She knew that no matter why he felt he had to go back, he wasn't happy in Boston. She didn't need words to know that Joseph didn't think of Bret as an equal. Bret
did
like being at the ranch. This was where he belonged. She just didn't know how to make him see that.

She sighed, placed her father's hand by his side, and stood. She kissed him on the forehead. Maybe she would talk to him when he started to feel stronger. He'd lived in the same two worlds as Bret and had never regretted turning his back on Boston. Maybe he could help her find a way to convince Bret he was making a mistake.

“I never knew you expected to find living on a ranch exciting,” Bret said to Joseph after Emily had left them. “Nor did I know you'd been writing Emily.”

“I can't see why you should think you ought to be privy to my thoughts or actions.” Joseph had dropped all pretense of politeness. Scorn practically dripped from his words.

“I don't. I just can't understand why, if you were so fond of Emily and she valued your opinion so much, your father would ask me to talk her into moving to Boston instead of you.”

Joseph laughed. “He thought it was too dangerous for me.” He looked around in disgust. “With all of Sam Abercrombie's money, why would he choose to live in a place like this?”

“It's a working ranch. There's no need for velvet curtains, damask chair coverings, and Turkish carpets on the floor. They'd be cut to pieces in a few months. Ranch life is rough, and ranchers are rough men.”

“You sound like you admire them.”

“I've done their work. I know how hard it is.”

“If you like it so much, maybe you ought to stay here.”

“If I did, there'd be no need for Emily to move to Boston.”

Joseph's body went rigid and he sat forward in his chair. “My father told you not to try to insinuate yourself into Emily's affections. If you've led that poor girl to believe you'd make a suitable husband—”

“I've made it quite clear I'd be just the opposite.” Bret couldn't understand why Joseph and his father thought everybody would do whatever they demanded. He supposed it came from a lifetime of ruling other people's lives. “I'm going back to Boston any day now. Your father promised he'd look over
some suggestions I had for changes to the company.”

“You can forget about any insignificant ideas you might have had,” Joseph said, his sneer back in place. “Father has come up with a brilliant plan to move Abbott and Abercrombie to the forefront of the industry for the next fifty years.” Then, to Bret's shock and dismay, Joseph proceeded to outline the very plan Bret had presented to his uncle.

Uncle Silas was claiming Bret's plan as his own.

“Those are my ideas,” Bret said. “I gave them to Uncle Silas months ago. Just before I left for Texas, he told me he hadn't had a chance to look at them.”

If it was possible, Joseph's look became even more contemptuous. “You might have fooled Emily and her father into thinking you know a lot about the shipping business, but don't try that on me. Father hasn't kept you in a clerking position because he thinks you're brilliant.”

“He's kept me in a clerking position because he doesn't want anything to do with me,” Bret snapped. “Any more than you do. That's fine with me—I don't care about that anymore—but I won't sit silently by and let him steal my ideas.”

“Assuming they were your ideas, what are you going to do about it?”

Bret opened his mouth to tell Joseph exactly what he intended to do, then thought better of it. If his uncle was willing to take the risk of claiming somebody else's work, he must have already planned how to make it look like Bret was lying.

“I thought so,” Joseph said, a malignant smile on his face. “Father always said you were a bad seed. I didn't know you were a liar as well.”

Bret stood. “I'm neither. Now I'd better show you to your room. I have work to do tomorrow, so I'll be up at dawn.”

“You really are working on this miserable place?”

“Emily said you thought you'd find it exciting.”

“I'd never seen a cattle ranch before,” Joseph said evasively. “How was I to know what it was really like?”

“You could have asked me,” Bret said, knowing that Joseph would never have done such a thing. “I could have spared you the trip.”

“I didn't come to look at the ranch.” Joseph had gotten to his feet. He looked at his suitcase, then at Bret.

“Out here you carry your own suitcase,” Bret said. “It's part of what makes this a miserable place.”

Joseph's look of anger did little to improve Bret's mood. He had to get a telegram off to Rupert quickly. Picking up the lamp on the table between them, he led Joseph to his room.

“Is this the best room they have?” he asked, clearly stunned. The room was barely larger than the bed. The only other furniture was a ladder-back chair and a small chest of drawers. The walls were unadorned, and the window had no curtains. A basin and a pitcher of water sat on the chair. Bret assumed Jinx had brought the water in.

“It's the only room left.”

“What about your room?”

“I'll be happy to exchange, but you'll have to share it with Jinx.”

“You mean that dirty boy I saw earlier? I couldn't get a wink of sleep with him in the room.” He looked around in dismay. “I hope Emily's room is better than this.”

“I can't say. I've never seen it.”

“I'd be shocked if you had.”

“I'll leave you the light,” Bret said.

“Won't you need it?”

“I know the house well enough to find my room without it. Good night.”

Bret closed the door and headed to his room. Joseph was going to be in for a surprise when he discovered that Emily and her father didn't share Joseph's opinion of Bret. He was going to be even more surprised when he learned that Emily was going to Galveston rather than Boston, and that Bret would be going with her. But he was going to be horrified when he learned that Bret had been given the right to vote Sam's stock in Abbott & Abercrombie.

But probably no more shocked than Bret had been at his uncle's intended theft of his ideas. It was almost more than he could comprehend. He'd barely been able to contain his shock and rage. For a moment he'd thought he might explode. It wasn't merely caution that had prompted him to control his outburst. Something had snapped inside. He didn't know what it was. It was as though some tension had finally let go, some restraint had finally been removed.

Maybe he was ready to confront his uncle without any of the respect or deference he'd shown him in the past. Maybe he was ready to pull out records showing how his uncle was bleeding the company. He wouldn't rest until he found a way to expose his uncle.

So what had changed? Why did he feel as if he'd been given a reprieve?

“Bertie said Joseph could eat what she fixed or he could go hungry,” Jinx was telling Bret and Emily. “She said if her cooking wasn't good enough for him, he could head straight back to Boston. She said she never invited him to come sticking his nose in where it wasn't wanted.”

Bret and Emily had finished working with the horses. Jinx had come out for his lessons, but he was so excited, he hadn't said anything about saddling up.