Texas Lucky (33 page)

“Tess, I understand how you feel.” He found two glasses and filled both with brandy. “This is a terrible time for you. Winter wiped out much of your herd, and now you’ve got this horrible worry over your brother. But the worst thing you could do is sell off all your herd, because you’d hardly have enough to start another and certainly not enough for feed to see you through
next
winter.”

She took the glass he handed her and lifted it to her lips.

The brandy burned her throat a bit but slid warmly down to miraculously ease the knot in her stomach.

She took another sip, then attempted reason. “Wendell, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me…everything you’re doing…but I’m not sure how much longer I can hang onto any of this, because I can’t keep taking your charity.”

“It’s not charity. It’s friendship.”

“But you don’t even know me. I’m a stranger to you.”

“Not anymore. We’ve shared so many things, Tess. I feel as though I’ve known you all my life. In fact,” he confided in a reverent tone, “My sainted wife is the only other person I’ve ever felt so close to.”

She was flattered but still unnerved. She emptied her glass and endeavored once more to make him understand. “I want to sell my stock and pay you back for all you’ve done. And then, if I have to, I’ll try to sell my land and go elsewhere.”

His smile was indulgent, as though she were a daydreaming child. “And do what?”

“I can cook. The men who helped build my cabin and barn said I could always find work as a chuckwagon cook. Hundreds and hundreds of cattle drives will be starting soon. I can put word out that I want a job, and—”

“And do you realize how hard the work would be, Tess?” He refilled her glass. “Obviously you don’t understand all that would entail.”

At the risk of sounding impudent, she pointed out, “Well, I doubt that you do, either, Wendell…your being an easterner like me.”

He let the remark slide, instead saying, “I also find it difficult to believe a rancher would hire a woman, especially one as lovely as you, to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles with rough and rowdy drovers. Don’t you see the problems it would cause…the fighting among the men vying for your favor?”

He had a point. Having the respect of the hands on her own spread was one thing, but being in the company of strange men out in the wilds for months was another.

They were sitting at the table, and Wendell reached to clasp her hand. “Let me help you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. You’ve done too much. And you have to stop worrying about me and my problems. I hate to say it, but finding Perry looks hopeless.”

“I’m afraid the Army agrees with you. They’ve been looking for Chief Quanah’s camp for quite a while, and—”

“So it was his warriors.” She quickly recounted Granger’s story and how he believed Perry, though enduring hardships, would not be harmed.

“I heard the same thing from the soldiers,” Wendell said. “And since it seems useless to send out any more search parties, I decided to try posting a reward—one thousand dollars for the whereabouts of Quanah’s camp; two thousand for the boy’s safe return.”

Tess’s hand flew to her mouth. “You did that?”

He nodded proudly. “I did.”

“But that’s so much money, and Perry is nothing to you.”

“You’re wrong.”

His eyes were sad, the corners of his mouth turned down, and suddenly it dawned on Tess that he seemed to age a little more as he said, “He does mean something to me, Tess…because you do.”

She was deeply moved. “Thank you, Wendell, and I don’t know how I can ever repay you for what you’re doing.”

“You don’t have to. I want to do it.”

“I understand, but it’s not right for you to spend your money on me and my problems, Wendell.”

He refilled their glasses.

Tess blinked. Her eyelids felt heavy. How many glasses had she had? She could not remember and she could not tell from the bottle because Wendell had been drinking from it, too, and it was over half-empty.

“I don’t think I should drink any more,” she said as he handed the glass to her.

“How much have you slept lately?” he asked suddenly.

“I don’t know. Not much, I suppose. I keep dreaming I hear someone riding in with news about Perry, and I wake up and run to look out. Then I lay awake for a long time.”

“Maybe the brandy will help you sleep.”

She hoped so and decided to have one more sip.

“Or perhaps
I
can.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glass.

Surely she had not heard right, she told herself as a creeping chill assaulted her spine.

Surely he was not going to ask her to go to bed with him…not after she had convinced herself he had no motives in helping her except sincere compassion.

With shaking fingers she set the glass on the table, further unnerved by how he was looking at her with eyes shining expectantly.

“I think,” she said when she could trust herself to speak around the anger that had begun to choke her, “that you had best leave now. And I assure you I will find a way to pay you for what you have spent on me.”

Stiffly, she rose, intending to show him to the door, but he was on his feet to rush around the table and grasp her by her shoulders.

As she glared up at him, she saw his eyes were no longer shining but were clouded with alarm. “Oh, dear God, Tess, I’ve offended you. I never meant—”

She struggled to free herself. “I asked you to leave. Don’t make me scream and bring Granger and Nick running.”

“No,” he all but shouted, and then the words tumbled out in a rush. “I can’t allow you to think I was suggesting anything improper. I was trying to be humorous to hide my nervousness, because I’m so terribly afraid you’ll say no.”

He paused, then whispered, “I want to marry you, Tess. I want you to be my wife.”

She swayed in his arms, stunned, for it was the last thing she had expected to hear. Still, through the great roaring in her ears she felt a wave of relief to realize he had not been suggesting something untoward after all.

“Wendell, I…I…” she stammered, unsure of what she wanted to say right then, but knowing he expected an answer.

His hands dropped away, and she dizzily passed a hand in front of her face as she sat back down.

The brandy was making her fuzzy-headed, and she wanted to choose her words carefully, did not want to offend him or hurt him, because she could not accept his proposal.

“Tess, listen to me.” He dropped to one knee before her, grabbed both her hands, and held on tightly. “I know what you’re thinking—I’m too old for you, and you don’t love me. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t really love you, either.”

“You…you don’t?” She was even more confused.

“I could never love anyone but Leona.”

“Then why…”

“Because I’m lonely”—his voice broke—“and I need someone to care for…someone to care for me. You don’t have anyone else, and neither do I. We could care for each other, don’t you see?

“Remember when we were talking on the way to Alamedo?” he rushed on without giving her a chance to speak, “I was about to tell you that I wanted to invest in your ranch if you’d let me, only right at that moment we heard the dreadful news about Perry, and there hasn’t been a proper time to bring it up since. I do want to invest, Tess. I want to make your ranch prosper and grow. I want to build a big, fine home for you, barns, a stable, anything you want, and all I ask in return is that you marry me and make me feel like I belong somewhere…to someone.

“And when we find Perry,” he added with a hopeful smile as he stood and drew her up with him, “we’ll be a real family, because I won’t stop trying to find him, I promise.”

“Wendell, I don’t love you.”

It was all she could think of to say.

“And I told you it doesn’t matter. I don’t expect you to. Just say yes, please. You need me, and I’ll be good to you, I swear it.”

Her head was spinning and she asked herself, wasn’t marriage the reason she had come west in the first place?

Marriage to a man she did not love?

A stranger?

Only this was different.

Wendell was not a
stranger.

He was her
friend
.

“Please,” he urged. “Say you’ll marry me.”

And finally, though the brandy haze and because in that crystallized moment she did not feel there was another living soul who cared what happened to her, she whispered, “Yes, Wendell. I will.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The mare Curt had bought from Richard King had thrown a shoe on the way back from Santa Gertrudis in south Texas. Not taking any chances on her going lame, he got busy shodding her as soon as he got home.

She had cost more than he had planned to spend but was prime stock. If he could find a quality stud to breed her when she was ready, he knew he was on his way to raising his own choice quarterhorses.

He didn’t see any of the hands around and figured they were finishing roundup and getting ready for the drive to Sedalia.

Curt had heard that infernal Apache, Quanah Parker, had been leading raids in the territory north of Dallas, which meant they were going to have to be extra cautious. Indians, especially the Apaches, loved to sneak up at night and rustle off steers. And sometimes just for the hell of it they would kill a few by riddling them with arrows.

“You’re back.” Caleb walked in carrying a bucket. “How was the trip? I need some turpentine for one of the boys. He fell off his horse and gashed his leg, and—”

He saw the mare and, dropping the bucket, he rushed to run his hand down the strong, smooth lines from her neck to her rump. “God almighty, boss. This is some horse.”

“That she is,” Curt said proudly, then asked, “Are we ready to start the drive tomorrow?”

Caleb explained why they would need to wait one more day. “The boys are all excited about the shivaree over at the Partridge ranch tonight, and they ain’t gonna be in no shape to start a cattle drive at dawn after raisin’ hell all night.”

Curt was hammering the last nail in the shoe, but his hand froze in midair. “What did you say?”

“I said they’re not gonna be in shape to—”

“I heard that part, but what’s this about a shivaree? I thought her foreman quit to go get married and settle someplace else. Is he back?”

“Buck? Naw, it ain’t him. But I guess you ain’t heard, since you been gone so long. It’s the lady herself—Miss Tess. She’s marryin’ that rich easterner everybody’s talking about it ’cause he’s makin’ quite a name for himself as a gambler. Plays poker just about every night at that fancy cattleman’s club in Dallas. Don’t act like a man about to get hitched a-tall.”

When Curt lapsed into a stony silence, nailing the shoe with quick, almost angry strokes of the hammer, Caleb hesitantly offered, “But if you want me to, I’ll tell the boys we’re gonna start, and maybe they won’t drink so much.”

“No. It’s all right,” Curt said tightly.

But it was not all right.

The rich easterner had to be Wendell Thorpe. Curt had seen him acting like a lovesick boy that day in Dallas.

But it didn’t matter who the man was.

What had Curt feeling like he’d been hit in the head with the hammer he was holding was to think of Tess marrying anybody—except him.

Because, during the long ride to Santa Gertrudis and back he’d had plenty of time to think things through and now knew, beyond all doubt, that he loved her and always had.

And so strong was this revelation that, had she not stayed in Texas, had she gone back east, he would be heading in that direction to find her and ask her to be his wife.

He had also argued with himself that maybe he was taking a lot for granted, thinking she would even have him. After all, she believed he had stolen her money, and then he had raised hell with her over the land she’d won—fair and square, too, he grumpily had to acknowledge. So it might be she would say no.

But dammit, he had to find out.

It was the first time Curt had been to where Tess lived on the ranch, and right away he took notice of a very large house being constructed not far from a small cabin. Wagons were rolling in with lumber, and workers were scrambling around like ants, obviously in a hurry.

He saw Tess talking to a man and pointing to something on a paper he was holding.

Curt rode right up to them.

She paled slightly in recognition and blurted without greeting, “What are you doing here?”

He dismounted before saying, “We need to talk.”

She looked at the man standing beside her. “Would you excuse us a moment, please?”

The man quickly obliged.

As she folded her arms across her bosom, Tess’s eyes took on the stubborn gleam Curt knew all too well. “If you came here to try and buy my land, forget it,” she said crisply. “As you can see, Wendell is building us a new house, so we won’t be moving.”

“Well, that’s not the reason I came.”